Who says that we "don't want to live in a jungle"?
The only true cooperation comes from voluntary participation, RMS has a message, it's fine as long as he is not the government enforcing it by the threat of violence, like all the other special interests are doing.
Almost all users (wouldn't be presumptuous enough to give fake percentages, but I am certain it's the overwhelming majority) do not care about the fact that software isn't free and or open source.
They don't care that the source code doesn't come with the distribution or that they can't get the source code from the company even if they asked for it. They get what they are given and their choice make the market.
The market says: people buy this software and that is why the software exists in the form it exists in.
If people actually cared enough about getting the source and wouldn't have bought or used the software that wasn't open or free otherwise, then there would be a huge market of open and or free source software, otherwise it's a non starter, there is no market, the majority of users don't care, they are not you, it is absolutely not their priority.
It is as low on their list of priorities that the software is closed source, as the fact that they don't have the exact recipe (sequence of activities it takes) to prepare the pre-processed foods that they are buying.
Wait, so people do not care about some specific situation about the software that they are buying, I mean they don't care that the software isn't distributed with the source code but your argument is that if they understood that source code COULD in principle be also distributed with the software they would NOT buy it without the source?
I have extremely serious doubts about that, I am nearly completely convinced that you are totally wrong on that.
I am as convinced that you are wrong on that as that death and taxes are pretty much unavoidable.
People buy the software because they want it and they want it now, they don't CARE about source in nearly all cases. They almost never care. There are very very very few people who care that there is no source code coming with the software and even fewer out of those who care wouldn't buy or steal that software if they actually wanted to use it.
I don't believe you have a business case at all here.
Hold on, so you want somebody to give you 10 random applications you want to have as open or free source but you, yourself aren't willing to write them as open or free source software?
So somebody took the time and resources and created those applications and is distributing them in whatever market that exists for them, and your complaining that THOSE SAME people aren't distributing these applications as free and or open software? Or is your complaint that somebody else didn't create them as open / free source?
Let me ask you this: who owes you this favour, of creating free or open source versions of those applications, while those very applications likely have a good enough market being distributed as closed source?
As I said: where is the market?
Where is the market for those applications existing as free and or open source?
Do those applications SELL?
Have you tried contacting the vendors and asking them this question: why don't you release your applications as open and or free source, give them a REASON at least to respond to you, then you can even post the replies that you'll get here, otherwise it's total vacuum we are arguing in.
Clearly you are not writing the free open source alternatives for them. So if you are not writing the alternatives and there are plenty of people who pay and buy the closed source software, then there is no market and there is nobody willing to take this task upon themselves, including you, who are clearly concerned about the lack of free and or open source alternatives to these specific applications.
You may care about those 10 apps, I don't, Gimp does more than I ever could use in such an app, netflix I don't use, I don't know. Turbo Tax, well, it's a business app, I'd be surprised if anybody wanted to sink considerable resources into such an app to make it free or open source, it's not a fun thing to write. Clearly people buy it, otherwise it wouldn't have existed, so there is a healthy market for that app being closed, I don't know if there is such a huge potential in a Tax preparation software for the authors to release as free source, but MAYBE there is, have you tried contacting them and giving them any good reasons, showing them how they could gain something from releasing the already existing code as free or open source? Try and justify it to them, maybe they can make more money that way, but after all, they do spend considerable resources creating it, so it's really their source code to do with as they please.
I don't know what that Stone Age Order Manager is, same question to you: have you talked to them?
The rest are games and I don't play any complex games, just some free and open source games available on whatever GNU platform I have installed.
If you can make a BUSINESS case to the makers of those games, show them that they could actually get a good return doing what you want, you may want to talk to them. Otherwise why aren't there any good alternatives to them that you'd like?
Have you STUDIED THE MARKET? Do you know how many people CARE?
Clearly the games must make money for the makers, so they don't see a reason to do this just because of a few people who care. You see, a market is not 3 bearded guys in a basement, it has to make financial sense, there has to be profit in it.
I am going to insist that my initial comment is absolutely correct - people buy closed source software and this includes the software you listed, so there is a market for that. Can you beat that market with the market you are talking about?
Will there be a gain or a loss for a company in any of these cases to release their source code? I think they may tell you that there is no business case and I would be surprised if you could prove otherwise.
Users can grow their own tobacco, they can buy from other vendors, but it's funny that you are comparing cigarettes to software.
Tobacco is clearly an addictive narcotic that is also harmful to people (causes multiple health problems). OTOH the software hardly can be said to have the same adverse health risks (cancers?) Way to compare apples to rocks.
There is plenty of open source software, thus the only reason closed source software sells is because people like to buy it, do you want to take away their ability to buy it?
The market says that it wants closed source software, there is now more than ever of this software selling to individual users (think all the mobile phone apps as an example). The market is there, it's healthy and it has plenty of competing open or free source software.
It is up to the users to decide whether they want to run the software or not, if users decided they didn't want to run closed source software, the market for closed source software would disappear, nobody would be able to sell it.
Since the users are not making that decision, the market for closed source software exists and thrives actually, which makes this argument irrelevant.
So how about letting people be free people? A revolutionary idea, I know, I know. How about letting people decide what they want to eat, drink, who to fuck, when and where, whether they want to smoke or use drugs?
You say: it's a public thing, because of medical care? How about legalising freedom and letting people be free to make decisions on how to handle their health?
How about getting the gov't out of health care, health insurance, finances, money, interest rates, banking, social issues, labour and employment, regulating any business activity, licensing anybody for any purpose?
None of the above is any of governments' business, yet governments made it their business and the people allowed them to, and thus the people lost their freedoms and now see what this leads to - it's not JUST EPA and FDA and FCC and FDIC and HUD and SS and Medicare and FEMA and F&F and FED and IRS and FBI, it's also Patriot Act and HLS and FBI and CIA and NDAA and CISPA and ACTA and Drug War, etc.etc.
Gov't shouldn't be regulating anything that has anything to do with economy, the role of government is to PROTECT PEOPLE FROM THOSE WHO WANT TO VIOLATE THEIR RIGHTS, but the rights are only meaningful in the context of an individual and his relationship with the collective - with the government.
So when gov't talks about 'gay rights', the only thing that is meaningful in that context is how the government itself discriminates against people based on their sexuality. When gov't talks about women's rights, it is only meaningful in the context of women being discriminated by the government, same with minorities, races, religions, disabilities, etc.
The only meaningful concept of a 'right' is a that, which describes a person's relationship with the government - the government has no right to destroy a person, gov't has no right to steal from a person, gov't has no right to imprison a person unless the person is in violation of certain rules, and there is a JUDICIAL review (unlike what your AG wants to tell you, it MUST be a judicial review, not a review by some elite politicians before the State can kill you, take your property away from you or imprison you).
You see, the most important right of all is life, then it's liberty (not being detained, kidnapped, imprisoned) and then it's property.
All other rights pale in comparison to those 3 fundamental rights.
1. Without your life you don't exist, thus it's obvious. 2. Without your freedom your life doesn't exist, it's obvious. 3. Without your property, your life doesn't exist, it's obvious.
You can start understanding the right to property, once you understand right to your life and liberty, because your property starts with your BODY.
Your property starts with your body, with parts of your body. Unless you are the kind of person, willing to say that "from each, according to his ability, to each, according to his need", and then you are willing to use force to take away a kidney from a healthy person and give it to somebody with failing kidneys (all by force), then we can have a conversation. Once you cross that line, once you say that force can be used to steal body parts from one person so that another person can have those body parts, we can't have a discussion.
But if you admit that body parts represent ultimate property, then this can be used to explain the rest of property. It's not just stuff that is within your skin boundaries. The fruits of your LABOUR are your property without a question, because without your labour those things wouldn't exist, and thus you have the ultimate right to posses the output of your production. What you create is yours and gov't and society cannot steal from you just because you have created, and this must be understood under the same principle as the right to life and the right to liberty.
All other rights are irrelevant if any one of these 3 rights are violated.
So a State taxing a person's INCOME or WORK is violation of the basic principle of right to proper
AFAIC there shouldn't be ANY involvement into the education process by ANY level of ANY government. It should be all private all the time, no gov't money, no gov't guaranteed loans, let the market sort things out.
Some will be more successful than others, there will be competition, there will be no free money in the system, so prices would be collapsing and quality would gain as there would be more choices and more ability to make a profit by providing a better product / service.
It's between parents and their children, if the potential parents want to take thalidomide after it was shown to be dangerous to unborn children, then it's between the parents and children and government has no right to meddle with that either.
If other drugs were legal, this 'cannibal' wouldn't be taking the synthetic stuff.
The only way that one drug leads to somebody taking another drug (gateway) is because the client already had to approach a pusher rather than going to a store to get some pot or blow or crack or other similar known substance.
like assessing the risk of a loan or mortgage defaulting, for example?
- of-course.
The risk of defaulting on mortgages and other types of loans is absolutely negligible if there is a government guarantee behind the loan and also if the mortgage is given with free money printed by the Fed.
Yes, people would all be completely honest if it wasn't for that damned government getting in the way!
- you know, I can write a 100 page essay just on this topic and give probably 100 points that would prove how stupid that quote is, give at least a 1000 examples proving my points. Would it change your understanding of this issue? I doubt it.
Here is a small subset:
1. Gov't is not honest, never was, never will be. Patriot Act isn't patriotic, home land security does not make anybody more secure, 'affordable housing' helped to destroyed any housing, etc.
2. Gov't doesn't give a shit about anybody being honest unless it's the kind of honesty that hurts the gov't. SEC never gave a shit about Enron, Madoff or the National Inflation Association, which has been running pump and dump schemes for at least 2 years now and SEC was and is notified on all of these, and so what?
3. I never claimed that people will be more honest, if you think so, you are completely misguided. The dishonest people always exist, all systems, all circumstances, forever. However in free market the dishonest people can only damage a small subset of all people, but when dishonest people are somehow connected to government, that's when their dishonesty becomes truly damaging to everybody in a major way.
So I gave you 3 simple points right here, even some examples why those points are correct. Will you be honest and admit you don't know shit and are just spouting nonsense in your comment?
including tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts
- I agree. 50% of population only pays 3% of the income taxes, to have a more fair system they shouldn't be getting tax cuts, they should be getting tax increases.
If they can raise the money and do it themselves, then who would object? At any moment in time whoever wants to run a project can ask for donations or release token bonds to be bought and advertise this and if there are enough people who want to see a moonbase and they pay for it, then it wouldn't be a problem for anybody who doesn't want to see gov't spend money this way.
As to voting: those who don't pay taxes to government shouldn't be able to vote. Those who pay more taxes than others should get extra votes.
Your daughter is not anybody else's problem, it is your problem, not mine, never was, never will be. Same thing in reverse - my daughter is only my problem, has nothing to do with you and caring about her should never be forced upon you by the threat of violence.
Clearly, to you it makes sense to pay 35K if every single thing you wanted was covered by whatever government program and all of your charges would be covered in that 35K.
I was fixing my teeth in Germany this year cost 12K (Euro), nearly all of it paid out of pocket though I carry private insurance of-course. That was just one of the things that I had to spend on this year.
However if I had to pay 50% of income in taxes for things I spend on out of pocket, I would overpay by 99% and would still get a shittier service, because I'd have to wait in line and I'd have worse results. Not only I'd be overcharged, there would have been no competition for my money from the sellers, they wouldn't be competing for my money, they'd be getting paid by gov't, so I wouldn't be a client in the first place, just another checkmark in a log book.
No, thank you, but no thank you. It absolutely doesn't make sense to pay 50% in taxes the more money you make. Income taxes are both morally and economically wrong, but progressive income taxes are even worse. At least with regressive income taxes, those who make more money would have been charged less percentage wise, and since they are already buying all of their stuff privately, they'd be robbed less, while those, who are relying on gov't to provide for them with all those programs, would have been paying for it with half of their earnings.
You want fairness? Regressive income taxes are more fair than the progressive type.
Nonsense. If you want the government to do something right, you shut the government down, all of it, then decide what bare minimum of the 'right' things it should do and tell it to do only those things at a very specifically calculated budget and then apportion the taxes to that budget from the States.
I find any ideological opposition to regulation curious.
- I find it curious that you find it curious.
Are you aware that the current crash came after a period of deregulation of the financial industry comparable only to what happened before 1923?
- are you aware that all of the regulations into financial industry and all other industries were passed in the 20th century?
I know that you are unaware that you are wrong.
1. Before 1923 there were much fewer regulations than any time after it.
2. Deregulation is a myth. About 15000 new financial regulations were created during the Bush era. In total there are over 100,000 various financial regulations concerning banks, investment companies, brokerages, exchanges, etc.
3. Real deregulation would have increased competition in banking. In reality there is more an more regulation and the competition in banking and finance is non-existent. There are no new banks, there are no new investment brokers, there is nothing new happening in the business. In fact there are much FEWER banks and much FEWER investment brokers in USA. Hell, USA even lost an exchange.
you'll find not only that the current crisis is nothing new
- maybe you should read my journal and go over my comments before offering your suggestions.
The current crisis is indeed nothing new, it is a logical continuation of the same thing that has been in the works since the Federal reserve was established and especially since Nixon defaulted on the dollar.
Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the credit bubble of the last decade and the current one and the one before and the one before and the one before and the one before.
Glass-Steagall was actually put in place to counteract the moral hazard created by the FDIC, but Glass Steagall is not the culprit in the credit bubbles, the culprit is Federal reserve bank, Treasury and Congress, which pushed forward various credit expanding agenda.
In your no-regulation world, how would you avoid that a fireworks factory is setup right next to your house (or maybe a nice nuclear waste treatment plant)?
- Federal regulations have nothing to do with local zoning bylaws, however taken to the logical conclusion, should I not want a firework factory or a nuclear waste treatment plant near my house?
The regulations and laws that are created by the government, allow private property rights to be dismantled at the whim of the politicians and their most connected business bodies. The only thing that is necessary to prevent any problem of pollution is to adhere to very strict private property laws and abolish all publicly owned assets, because again, they are the moral hazard.
Abolishing government from regulating the market would heal the economy.
The problem with IPOs is that the idea of what it is was perverted by government regulations. Without government regulations small companies, new companies would be able to go IPO without having to go through all the hoops that government sets in front of the companies - there wouldn't be a need for a company to reach a point where it is already making money in the first place. There wouldn't be a need to wait until the company is overvalued without any real upside.
What's the upside in buying FB stock in this IPO? There is no upside, FB is overvalued, just like many other companies before it. The upside is eaten by the banks - underwriters, but this is the problem CREATED by the government.
A company cannot go IPO without a lengthy and a very expensive legal process and this is the problem. If companies weren't prevented from going IPO in the very early stages, then their stock could be bought by small, by tiny investors and there would've been actual possibility for growth.
The government comes in and sets all these nonsense rules that are supposedly there to prevent risk to investors, and in doing so the government destroys the very reason to invest into companies. Taking risk IS what investors have to do, in some cases they would lose money and in some cases they would make money and in a few cases they'd lose all the invested money and in a few cases they would make it really big.
It would be totally up to investors to decide where to take the risk, companies wouldn't have to exist for years before going IPO, the VERY REASON to go IPO would actually become a healthy one again - going IPO with the government rules and regulations means that it is just a way for early investors and founders to cash out.
Going IPO was MADE by the government into a way to cash out of the company! Going IPO shouldn't be about allowing early investors and founders to cash out, it should be about growing the company - providing the company with the necessary funding to allow it to grow.
Going IPO should be about the market deciding whether it wants the company to have the resources needed to attempt and build that business, not about having a company with no risk to investors and thus basically insuring the exact opposite. Because of government rules and regulations IPOs have NO upside to the small investors, it all goes to the underwriters and early founders.
It makes no sense at all, and the public is made so absolutely categorically blind to the fact that it is the government rules and regulations that destroyed the ability of small investors to take risks in investing and manage their own risk, hedge their bets and actually have a real possibility to invest into a company with real upsides.
A little investor with just hundreds or thousands of dollars is NOT allowed to participate in a company's success from early stages of formation.
You want more regulations? Really, you so believe that what is needed here is more regulations? You believe that the current amount of regulations surrounding IPO makes your investment opportunities better? Less risky? Safer?
The government removes the only one risk: the risk that you can actually buy good investments with plenty of upside and participate in building a successful business.
The government protects you from one thing: from making money.
Slashdot Mirror
Who says that we "don't want to live in a jungle"?
The only true cooperation comes from voluntary participation, RMS has a message, it's fine as long as he is not the government enforcing it by the threat of violence, like all the other special interests are doing.
Here is on what special interests look like, when they get their time with the government, so RMS and his message are fine until the moment that he somehow becomes the special money interest (fat chance).
Almost all users (wouldn't be presumptuous enough to give fake percentages, but I am certain it's the overwhelming majority) do not care about the fact that software isn't free and or open source.
They don't care that the source code doesn't come with the distribution or that they can't get the source code from the company even if they asked for it. They get what they are given and their choice make the market.
The market says: people buy this software and that is why the software exists in the form it exists in.
If people actually cared enough about getting the source and wouldn't have bought or used the software that wasn't open or free otherwise, then there would be a huge market of open and or free source software, otherwise it's a non starter, there is no market, the majority of users don't care, they are not you, it is absolutely not their priority.
It is as low on their list of priorities that the software is closed source, as the fact that they don't have the exact recipe (sequence of activities it takes) to prepare the pre-processed foods that they are buying.
Wait, so people do not care about some specific situation about the software that they are buying, I mean they don't care that the software isn't distributed with the source code but your argument is that if they understood that source code COULD in principle be also distributed with the software they would NOT buy it without the source?
I have extremely serious doubts about that, I am nearly completely convinced that you are totally wrong on that.
I am as convinced that you are wrong on that as that death and taxes are pretty much unavoidable.
People buy the software because they want it and they want it now, they don't CARE about source in nearly all cases. They almost never care. There are very very very few people who care that there is no source code coming with the software and even fewer out of those who care wouldn't buy or steal that software if they actually wanted to use it.
I don't believe you have a business case at all here.
Hold on, so you want somebody to give you 10 random applications you want to have as open or free source but you, yourself aren't willing to write them as open or free source software?
So somebody took the time and resources and created those applications and is distributing them in whatever market that exists for them, and your complaining that THOSE SAME people aren't distributing these applications as free and or open software? Or is your complaint that somebody else didn't create them as open / free source?
Let me ask you this: who owes you this favour, of creating free or open source versions of those applications, while those very applications likely have a good enough market being distributed as closed source?
As I said: where is the market?
Where is the market for those applications existing as free and or open source?
Do those applications SELL?
Have you tried contacting the vendors and asking them this question: why don't you release your applications as open and or free source, give them a REASON at least to respond to you, then you can even post the replies that you'll get here, otherwise it's total vacuum we are arguing in.
Clearly you are not writing the free open source alternatives for them. So if you are not writing the alternatives and there are plenty of people who pay and buy the closed source software, then there is no market and there is nobody willing to take this task upon themselves, including you, who are clearly concerned about the lack of free and or open source alternatives to these specific applications.
You may care about those 10 apps, I don't, Gimp does more than I ever could use in such an app, netflix I don't use, I don't know. Turbo Tax, well, it's a business app, I'd be surprised if anybody wanted to sink considerable resources into such an app to make it free or open source, it's not a fun thing to write. Clearly people buy it, otherwise it wouldn't have existed, so there is a healthy market for that app being closed, I don't know if there is such a huge potential in a Tax preparation software for the authors to release as free source, but MAYBE there is, have you tried contacting them and giving them any good reasons, showing them how they could gain something from releasing the already existing code as free or open source? Try and justify it to them, maybe they can make more money that way, but after all, they do spend considerable resources creating it, so it's really their source code to do with as they please.
I don't know what that Stone Age Order Manager is, same question to you: have you talked to them?
The rest are games and I don't play any complex games, just some free and open source games available on whatever GNU platform I have installed.
If you can make a BUSINESS case to the makers of those games, show them that they could actually get a good return doing what you want, you may want to talk to them. Otherwise why aren't there any good alternatives to them that you'd like?
Have you STUDIED THE MARKET? Do you know how many people CARE?
Clearly the games must make money for the makers, so they don't see a reason to do this just because of a few people who care. You see, a market is not 3 bearded guys in a basement, it has to make financial sense, there has to be profit in it.
I am going to insist that my initial comment is absolutely correct - people buy closed source software and this includes the software you listed, so there is a market for that. Can you beat that market with the market you are talking about?
Will there be a gain or a loss for a company in any of these cases to release their source code? I think they may tell you that there is no business case and I would be surprised if you could prove otherwise.
Users can grow their own tobacco, they can buy from other vendors, but it's funny that you are comparing cigarettes to software.
Tobacco is clearly an addictive narcotic that is also harmful to people (causes multiple health problems). OTOH the software hardly can be said to have the same adverse health risks (cancers?) Way to compare apples to rocks.
There is plenty of open source software, thus the only reason closed source software sells is because people like to buy it, do you want to take away their ability to buy it?
The market says that it wants closed source software, there is now more than ever of this software selling to individual users (think all the mobile phone apps as an example). The market is there, it's healthy and it has plenty of competing open or free source software.
This is not an issue that you make it out to be.
It is up to the users to decide whether they want to run the software or not, if users decided they didn't want to run closed source software, the market for closed source software would disappear, nobody would be able to sell it.
Since the users are not making that decision, the market for closed source software exists and thrives actually, which makes this argument irrelevant.
So how about letting people be free people? A revolutionary idea, I know, I know. How about letting people decide what they want to eat, drink, who to fuck, when and where, whether they want to smoke or use drugs?
You say: it's a public thing, because of medical care? How about legalising freedom and letting people be free to make decisions on how to handle their health?
How about getting the gov't out of health care, health insurance, finances, money, interest rates, banking, social issues, labour and employment, regulating any business activity, licensing anybody for any purpose?
None of the above is any of governments' business, yet governments made it their business and the people allowed them to, and thus the people lost their freedoms and now see what this leads to - it's not JUST EPA and FDA and FCC and FDIC and HUD and SS and Medicare and FEMA and F&F and FED and IRS and FBI, it's also Patriot Act and HLS and FBI and CIA and NDAA and CISPA and ACTA and Drug War, etc.etc.
Gov't shouldn't be regulating anything that has anything to do with economy, the role of government is to PROTECT PEOPLE FROM THOSE WHO WANT TO VIOLATE THEIR RIGHTS, but the rights are only meaningful in the context of an individual and his relationship with the collective - with the government.
So when gov't talks about 'gay rights', the only thing that is meaningful in that context is how the government itself discriminates against people based on their sexuality. When gov't talks about women's rights, it is only meaningful in the context of women being discriminated by the government, same with minorities, races, religions, disabilities, etc.
The only meaningful concept of a 'right' is a that, which describes a person's relationship with the government - the government has no right to destroy a person, gov't has no right to steal from a person, gov't has no right to imprison a person unless the person is in violation of certain rules, and there is a JUDICIAL review (unlike what your AG wants to tell you, it MUST be a judicial review, not a review by some elite politicians before the State can kill you, take your property away from you or imprison you).
You see, the most important right of all is life, then it's liberty (not being detained, kidnapped, imprisoned) and then it's property.
All other rights pale in comparison to those 3 fundamental rights.
1. Without your life you don't exist, thus it's obvious.
2. Without your freedom your life doesn't exist, it's obvious.
3. Without your property, your life doesn't exist, it's obvious.
You can start understanding the right to property, once you understand right to your life and liberty, because your property starts with your BODY.
Your property starts with your body, with parts of your body. Unless you are the kind of person, willing to say that "from each, according to his ability, to each, according to his need", and then you are willing to use force to take away a kidney from a healthy person and give it to somebody with failing kidneys (all by force), then we can have a conversation. Once you cross that line, once you say that force can be used to steal body parts from one person so that another person can have those body parts, we can't have a discussion.
But if you admit that body parts represent ultimate property, then this can be used to explain the rest of property. It's not just stuff that is within your skin boundaries. The fruits of your LABOUR are your property without a question, because without your labour those things wouldn't exist, and thus you have the ultimate right to posses the output of your production. What you create is yours and gov't and society cannot steal from you just because you have created, and this must be understood under the same principle as the right to life and the right to liberty.
All other rights are irrelevant if any one of these 3 rights are violated.
So a State taxing a person's INCOME or WORK is violation of the basic principle of right to proper
It's about competition.
AFAIC there shouldn't be ANY involvement into the education process by ANY level of ANY government. It should be all private all the time, no gov't money, no gov't guaranteed loans, let the market sort things out.
Some will be more successful than others, there will be competition, there will be no free money in the system, so prices would be collapsing and quality would gain as there would be more choices and more ability to make a profit by providing a better product / service.
Fan death, so what? I believe in death by Snu Snu, still you don't see me running around, telling people horses don't have gills.
No, it's your post that is stupid if you don't understand that people are free to take whatever drugs they want.
Some women drink alcohol and smoke during pregnancy, the government cannot force them not to do so, it is between those women and their children.
It's between parents and their children, if the potential parents want to take thalidomide after it was shown to be dangerous to unborn children, then it's between the parents and children and government has no right to meddle with that either.
If other drugs were legal, this 'cannibal' wouldn't be taking the synthetic stuff.
The only way that one drug leads to somebody taking another drug (gateway) is because the client already had to approach a pusher rather than going to a store to get some pot or blow or crack or other similar known substance.
like assessing the risk of a loan or mortgage defaulting, for example?
- of-course.
The risk of defaulting on mortgages and other types of loans is absolutely negligible if there is a government guarantee behind the loan and also if the mortgage is given with free money printed by the Fed.
Yes, people would all be completely honest if it wasn't for that damned government getting in the way!
- you know, I can write a 100 page essay just on this topic and give probably 100 points that would prove how stupid that quote is, give at least a 1000 examples proving my points. Would it change your understanding of this issue? I doubt it.
Here is a small subset:
1. Gov't is not honest, never was, never will be. Patriot Act isn't patriotic, home land security does not make anybody more secure, 'affordable housing' helped to destroyed any housing, etc.
2. Gov't doesn't give a shit about anybody being honest unless it's the kind of honesty that hurts the gov't. SEC never gave a shit about Enron, Madoff or the National Inflation Association, which has been running pump and dump schemes for at least 2 years now and SEC was and is notified on all of these, and so what?
3. I never claimed that people will be more honest, if you think so, you are completely misguided. The dishonest people always exist, all systems, all circumstances, forever. However in free market the dishonest people can only damage a small subset of all people, but when dishonest people are somehow connected to government, that's when their dishonesty becomes truly damaging to everybody in a major way.
So I gave you 3 simple points right here, even some examples why those points are correct. Will you be honest and admit you don't know shit and are just spouting nonsense in your comment?
Inconceivable, you must ingeminate.
aren't you happy now that you didn't forget to hit that "Post Anonymously" check box?
Oh, btw, Roundup probably kills bees and government probably covers it up.
including tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts
- I agree. 50% of population only pays 3% of the income taxes, to have a more fair system they shouldn't be getting tax cuts, they should be getting tax increases.
If they can raise the money and do it themselves, then who would object? At any moment in time whoever wants to run a project can ask for donations or release token bonds to be bought and advertise this and if there are enough people who want to see a moonbase and they pay for it, then it wouldn't be a problem for anybody who doesn't want to see gov't spend money this way.
As to voting: those who don't pay taxes to government shouldn't be able to vote. Those who pay more taxes than others should get extra votes.
Your daughter is not anybody else's problem, it is your problem, not mine, never was, never will be. Same thing in reverse - my daughter is only my problem, has nothing to do with you and caring about her should never be forced upon you by the threat of violence.
USA used to be the country that 'welcomed self-centered blowhards', that's how it became the wealthiest producer, creditor nation on the planet.
Others will welcome the 'self-centered blowhards' today, it's going to be USA's loss.
Well, out of your 70K, paying 50% would be 35K.
Clearly, to you it makes sense to pay 35K if every single thing you wanted was covered by whatever government program and all of your charges would be covered in that 35K.
I was fixing my teeth in Germany this year cost 12K (Euro), nearly all of it paid out of pocket though I carry private insurance of-course. That was just one of the things that I had to spend on this year.
However if I had to pay 50% of income in taxes for things I spend on out of pocket, I would overpay by 99% and would still get a shittier service, because I'd have to wait in line and I'd have worse results. Not only I'd be overcharged, there would have been no competition for my money from the sellers, they wouldn't be competing for my money, they'd be getting paid by gov't, so I wouldn't be a client in the first place, just another checkmark in a log book.
No, thank you, but no thank you. It absolutely doesn't make sense to pay 50% in taxes the more money you make. Income taxes are both morally and economically wrong, but progressive income taxes are even worse. At least with regressive income taxes, those who make more money would have been charged less percentage wise, and since they are already buying all of their stuff privately, they'd be robbed less, while those, who are relying on gov't to provide for them with all those programs, would have been paying for it with half of their earnings.
You want fairness? Regressive income taxes are more fair than the progressive type.
Nonsense. If you want the government to do something right, you shut the government down, all of it, then decide what bare minimum of the 'right' things it should do and tell it to do only those things at a very specifically calculated budget and then apportion the taxes to that budget from the States.
I find any ideological opposition to regulation curious.
- I find it curious that you find it curious.
Are you aware that the current crash came after a period of deregulation of the financial industry comparable only to what happened before 1923?
- are you aware that all of the regulations into financial industry and all other industries were passed in the 20th century?
I know that you are unaware that you are wrong.
1. Before 1923 there were much fewer regulations than any time after it.
2. Deregulation is a myth. About 15000 new financial regulations were created during the Bush era. In total there are over 100,000 various financial regulations concerning banks, investment companies, brokerages, exchanges, etc.
3. Real deregulation would have increased competition in banking. In reality there is more an more regulation and the competition in banking and finance is non-existent. There are no new banks, there are no new investment brokers, there is nothing new happening in the business. In fact there are much FEWER banks and much FEWER investment brokers in USA. Hell, USA even lost an exchange.
you'll find not only that the current crisis is nothing new
- maybe you should read my journal and go over my comments before offering your suggestions.
The current crisis is indeed nothing new, it is a logical continuation of the same thing that has been in the works since the Federal reserve was established and especially since Nixon defaulted on the dollar.
Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the credit bubble of the last decade and the current one and the one before and the one before and the one before and the one before.
Glass-Steagall was actually put in place to counteract the moral hazard created by the FDIC, but Glass Steagall is not the culprit in the credit bubbles, the culprit is Federal reserve bank, Treasury and Congress, which pushed forward various credit expanding agenda.
In your no-regulation world, how would you avoid that a fireworks factory is setup right next to your house (or maybe a nice nuclear waste treatment plant)?
- Federal regulations have nothing to do with local zoning bylaws, however taken to the logical conclusion, should I not want a firework factory or a nuclear waste treatment plant near my house?
The regulations and laws that are created by the government, allow private property rights to be dismantled at the whim of the politicians and their most connected business bodies. The only thing that is necessary to prevent any problem of pollution is to adhere to very strict private property laws and abolish all publicly owned assets, because again, they are the moral hazard.
The gov't doesn't have a problem with a company destroying a resource near you, the government provides liability protection for companies doing it.
Abolishing government from regulating the market would heal the economy.
The problem with IPOs is that the idea of what it is was perverted by government regulations. Without government regulations small companies, new companies would be able to go IPO without having to go through all the hoops that government sets in front of the companies - there wouldn't be a need for a company to reach a point where it is already making money in the first place. There wouldn't be a need to wait until the company is overvalued without any real upside.
What's the upside in buying FB stock in this IPO? There is no upside, FB is overvalued, just like many other companies before it. The upside is eaten by the banks - underwriters, but this is the problem CREATED by the government.
A company cannot go IPO without a lengthy and a very expensive legal process and this is the problem. If companies weren't prevented from going IPO in the very early stages, then their stock could be bought by small, by tiny investors and there would've been actual possibility for growth.
The government comes in and sets all these nonsense rules that are supposedly there to prevent risk to investors, and in doing so the government destroys the very reason to invest into companies. Taking risk IS what investors have to do, in some cases they would lose money and in some cases they would make money and in a few cases they'd lose all the invested money and in a few cases they would make it really big.
It would be totally up to investors to decide where to take the risk, companies wouldn't have to exist for years before going IPO, the VERY REASON to go IPO would actually become a healthy one again - going IPO with the government rules and regulations means that it is just a way for early investors and founders to cash out.
Going IPO was MADE by the government into a way to cash out of the company! Going IPO shouldn't be about allowing early investors and founders to cash out, it should be about growing the company - providing the company with the necessary funding to allow it to grow.
Going IPO should be about the market deciding whether it wants the company to have the resources needed to attempt and build that business, not about having a company with no risk to investors and thus basically insuring the exact opposite. Because of government rules and regulations IPOs have NO upside to the small investors, it all goes to the underwriters and early founders.
It makes no sense at all, and the public is made so absolutely categorically blind to the fact that it is the government rules and regulations that destroyed the ability of small investors to take risks in investing and manage their own risk, hedge their bets and actually have a real possibility to invest into a company with real upsides.
A little investor with just hundreds or thousands of dollars is NOT allowed to participate in a company's success from early stages of formation.
You want more regulations? Really, you so believe that what is needed here is more regulations? You believe that the current amount of regulations surrounding IPO makes your investment opportunities better? Less risky? Safer?
The government removes the only one risk: the risk that you can actually buy good investments with plenty of upside and participate in building a successful business.
The government protects you from one thing: from making money.