The only interesting numbers here are the ones that are showing total use, and this has everything to do with economics, which has everything to do with fiscal policy.
Total use is what people are able to spend on energy, which is part of their spending, and as more and more things are going up in price in dollars, people will still have to buy many of those things (food, shelter, clothing, medicine), they will have to cut where they can, and the first things to cut will be entertainment.
This means people go out less, they drive less, they also use less electrical power as they are looking for ways to save money to buy the absolute necessities.
US energy consumption is falling even where it concerns oil, that's due to the inflation and thus higher prices in dollar amounts, though measured in gold, the oil is cheapest in history.
September 2009 â" Current (US Population 307,006,550) Total input to refineries 14,600,000 Barrels per day Total Imported Crude and products 11,721,000 Barrels per day Total Imported Crude 9,223,000 Barrels per day Total Domestic Oil Production 5,444,000 Barrels per day Gasoline Consumed 8,779,000 Barrels per day Diesel Fuel Consumed 4,099,000 Barrels per day
September 2004 - 5 years ago (US Population 293,045,739)
Registered vehicles: 243,010,539 Passenger Cars: 136,430,651 Comm Aircraft: 8,186 Total input to refineries 15,254,000 Barrels per day Total Imported Crude and products 13,438,000 Barrels per day Total Imported Crude 9,697,000 Barrels per day Total Domestic Oil Production 5,062,000 Barrels per day Gasoline Consumed 7,993,000 Barrels per day Diesel Fuel Consumed
It's not a surprise that energy consumption is falling in USA, as the population has less and less that it can spend because less and less is produced domestically. Same thing that is applied to oil can be extrapolated to all other forms of energy.
Gold is money, anything else that is printed is a promise note - currency. Currencies fail.
Currencies fail, money does not.
Here is a clue by 4 - this is what US 10 year bonds have been doing since the 60s. Note how the yield is now lowest ever? The price for that bond is highest ever, while the currency is being printed out of existence, which is given to banks and by doing currency swaps it's also given to foreign national banks, all while foreign national banks also hoard US currency?
All of this currency goes into buying T-bills, so this is the clear indicator of where inflation is taking T-bills and thus where the reverse is going (interest rates on the 10 year bonds.)
This is the destruction path that I am talking about, this is going to burst and explode, and when it does, you are going to be stuck with nothing if you do not have real money.
Oh, and I wrote a couple of journal entries, one on HFT and the reasons as to why people don't understand it and don't understand what is causing it, and the other on this entire broken/. moderation system.
My take on HFT and how the complete misunderstanding of economics and inflation and the role of government prevents people from understanding the underlying reasons for the problem that HFT is becoming.
This is stupid. All the Germans who want one, will buy one over the Internet or will just buy one on their next trip to the neighboring Switzerland or some other place.
The fundamental failure in this case is the failure of approaching the market from investor perspective, and this fundamental failure is incentivized by free money, just like the insane CEO pays and non-existing dividend yields.
The very reason WHY it is at all possible to trade stocks at these insane speeds is this: people do not see their purchases as investment, they are not looking for or getting dividend yields.
People who are purchasing stocks are not looking for an investment opportunity in the underlying business, they are looking for a way to flip the stock quickly and to make the money.
Automation of this process is INEVITABLE as all things that are repeatable and can be automated with some investment capital in order to make the process more efficient will be done. Investments will be made. Automation will remove the slow element in the equation - the human trader.
The fact that the stock market is now not providing investment opportunities, but is instead used to gamble in the hopes that the stock will move in the right direction (up or down), is based on the available amount of free (interest free) money that is provided into the financial system by the Federal reserve bank.
At this point that Bernanke promised to keep interest rates at 0%, expect more and more automation to happen in HFT, it is an inevitable result of this moral hazard.
The free money create incentives to gamble, destroy incentives to save, and people (here, on/.) are celebrating this very fact, while amusingly at the same time being perplexed and angered by the wider and wider spread of HFT.
In order to fix this problem, what should be done is the Federal reserve bank must be prevented from further debasement of currency. The market must be allowed to set the standards on what money is. The interest rates must be set by market pressures, not by government decree. Government must stop issuing debt that it cannot repay and it must liquidate the debt that exists.
Only this will allow the currency to become valuable enough to be saved, it will create competition pressure between sovereign debt and the corporate bonds, this will force the companies to pay an actual INTEREST on the bonds - DIVIDENDS, which will in turn lower the pay that the CEOs and other management gets out of profits and simultaneously this will allow the markets to become investment vehicles again, instead of being giant casinos.
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Obviously, this again, will not be a popular or an understood opinion here, but it must be said.
I never said money is investment. You seem to misunderstand me completely.
Money is savings, it's not an investment. Real money is gold, it's not an investment. It is NOT an investment. Investment is a business. Business that makes money. Be it your own business or somebody else's business that you invest in.
Money is store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account. USD doesn't work as a store of value, here is the proof:
sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81% Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83% Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107% Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154% Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89% Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58% Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363% Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184% Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172% Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130% Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103% Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51% Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151% Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25% Pork Dec 2003: 48.68 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 92.06 cents/pound, price up by over 89% Silver Dec 2003: 565.33 cents/Troy ounce, Apr 2011: 4,279.79 cents/Troy ounce, price up by over 657% Alluminum Dec 2003: 1,557.78 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 2,667.44 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 71% Uranium Dec 2003: 13.35 USD/pound, Apr 2011: 57.84 USD/pound, price up by over 333% Iron Ore Dec 2003: 13.82 cents/dry Metric Ton, Apr 2011L: 179.26 cents/dry Metric Ton, price up by over 1197% (yeah, almost 1200%) Gasoline Dec 2003
Why do people care about what Krugman has to say? This is the guy who believes that destruction of wealth is the necessary stimulus that USA needs and that it would be great to have destruction even if by wars or natural disasters?
He believes there is a real difference in economics between 'micro' and 'macro', which is same nonsense as when the same differences are applied to evolution, so if you ask him - would he like his own house to be destroyed by a tsunami/tornado/flood, I am sure he'd answer - no. It's not good when done to a particular person. Only entire nations need to suffer altogether in wars and alien invasions.
This is guy is a Keynesian charlattan, he has nothing to do with economics, but his type of 'economics' is pervasive, because the politicians love these guys. The politicians invite these sort of 'economists' to be in the white house to help with policy, and this is the kind of help you get, while the universities then decide to have only these kinds of 'economists' propagate this nonsense further, so you end up with only Keynesian ideology in higher education. Thus all the underlying problems in the economy - because politicians use this charlatanism to give excuse for their only real agenda - stealing your money.
OK, from TFA:
What we want from a monetary system isn't to make people holding money rich; we want it to facilitate transactions and make the economy as a whole rich. And that's not at all what is happening in Bitcoin.
Bear in mind that dollar prices have been relatively stable over the past few years â" yes, some deflation in 2008-2009,
- RELATIVE TO WHAT, YOU DUMBO? Relative to other flawed currencies?:) Well, not to Swiss Franc. Not to Canadian dollar. Not to NZ dollar. Not to Australian Dollar.
Besides, 2008-2009 is a TERRIBLE time to compare, as too many people completely misunderstood what was happening in the real economy and plunged head first into the dollars, which was the absolute wrong thing to do (and it is wrong thing to do now too, but now people understand it. Look at kitco.com) Too many people actually think that Keynesian charlatanism is economics, so they fall in this trap of following completely wrong ideas.
Anyway, yes, it's deflation of assets in real terms, so in terms of gold/silver assets are falling in price. It's cheapest gasoline ever today - under 10cents for a gallon, but those are silver cents.
But the inflation is in dollars, which is why real money is going up.
then some inflation as commodity prices rebounded, but overall consumer prices are only slightly higher than they were three years ago. What that means is that if you measure prices in Bitcoins, they have plunged; the Bitcoin economy has in effect experienced massive deflation.
- GOOD. Good for those who hold Bitcoins. Bad for those who hold dollars.
And because of that, there has been an incentive to hoard the virtual currency rather than spending it. The actual value of transactions in Bitcoins has fallen rather than rising. In effect, real gross Bitcoin product has fallen sharply.
- This Keynesian wants you to be poor, do you understand that?
He wants you to pay 3.50USD for your gas, and BTW, he doesn't think it's high enough. They have a target to make it much higher. But he doesn't want you to pay 10 cents for that gallon.
So to the extent that the experiment tells us anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces the case against anything like a new gold standard â" because it shows just how vulnerable such a standard would
Except they haven't been 'creating jobs' for the last few years even though their profit margins have returned to normal.
- businesses do create jobs. Whatever jobs USA still has - those are created by businesses.
Of-course for the last 40 years now the businesses have been doing the obvious thing and moving jobs out of USA and other welfare states of the West, because those are welfare states, they counterfeit money and cause massive inflation, they destroy willingness of people to hire anybody by creating insane regulations, like this. I addressed a little of this on the Marx topic btw.
Profit margins don't mean much if your profits are below inflation, and inflation is rampant, it's between 10 and 13%, so this also creates perverse effects in insane CEO pay and investor gambling.
Businesses do not create jobs. People do. Consumers.
- oh boy. The only legitimate manner to consume is to produce something to exchange for the goods you want to consume.
Consumption is a trivial consequence of production. Without iPads nobody was 'consuming' them. Then Jobs came around, produced some iPads and consumers queued up at the Apple store entrances for days and nights to get those products. Jobs could have failed, and in fact Apple did fail with a product (starts with N), but this does not mean that consumers created that product.
That product was created, few people bought it, so it was unsuccessful. Again, more demand does drive production levels up, but the actual products are not created by consumers.
Real innovation starts with people creating products that nobody even knows can exist. Consumers. pffft.
Taxes on businesses cut into profits but most businesses can't or won't pass all of that on to consumers as the consumers will simply go to another company that offers a better price.
- oh, sure taxes are passed to consumers. Eventually all taxes are passed to consumers. The biggest tax is tax is inflation of-course, it's the worst tax of all, it's passed to everybody, but especially the middle-class and the poor people, who really can't afford to lose purchasing power, but government takes it away regardless while pretending otherwise.
I love how the pro-business folks always step up and say we are too hard on business when some of the highest taxed times on businesses have also been the most prosperous in US history.
- actually the highest taxes you are talking about were not on business, but were personal income taxes, which nobody paid anyway, the effective rate never went over 20% in USA, that's because at the time of those insane taxes, nobody was paying them, people were writing everything off and records were not computerized.
Obviously correlation of high taxes and production has nothing to do with causation. But in USA after the WWII, when the Great Depression ended in about 46-47, the taxes were lowered sharply as well as government spending, and that's when USA started gaining production and wealth again and for the next 20 years it was productive.
Right now businesses are only serving themselves and their CEO's, not their employees
- I addressed that - it's caused by government inflation and turning financial markets into casinos with counterfeit currency.
There has been a huge trend in the last decade to avoid taxes at any cost
ECO 101 doesn't get into anything beyond the demand/supply curves and utility functions, they are not even starting on the Keynesian charlatanism yet in those classes, 101 is at least bearable.
You should read my journal entry on why Marx was not right (it was the reply to the story just the other day.)
You'll drive it down a bit by removing regulation, but not enough.
- really? Just look at that proposal. Collecting information for IRS on your babysitter. Having to pay State minimum wage. Having to give 10 minute and 30 minute breaks, during which the babysitter is not responsible for what happens to the kid - (this alone means you need 2 babysitters, or what?) Having all sorts of minimums and maximums on hours, and even a proposal for paid vacation leave, some weird stuff on 'meal time', etc.etc. You think this will not create unemployment?
How about the mothers who'll stay home instead, because now they just can't hire babysitter? How about restaurants/theaters who'll see reduction of business, because people just can't go outside? I am certain that this regulation was written not without significant 'help' from some lobbyist working for an 'institutional' day care provider or something of that type.
It's insane nonsense and it's pervasive throughout the entire system, and you don't think this creates unemployment? In a country with over 20% unemployment/underemployment? Well, if you can't get passed your conditioning on the "social justice" (or whatever it is) in this case, then I guess you are right - who cares about those folks, all of them, those who need babysitters and those who need that income.
Who can trust a CA? Why would you trust a CA? How did a CA earn your trust?
Mozilla, it's time to own up. This is a bunch of nonsense. Stop treating self signed certificates like cancer, provide a way to see the fingerprint clearly, don't bother with the 'lock' icon and start working on some real innovation - how to do trust by having distributed lists of fingerprints, signatures, whatever. Something that doesn't rely on a signing authority at all.
Collection of income taxes actually violates your rights, which area also explicitly stated in the 4th and 5th amendments. There is nothing right at all about income tax, actually the first time an income tax was introduced (and fiat money by the way), was during the Civil War, which should never have been fought in the first place. So many Americans died in it, more than in either WWI or WWII. The slavery was a secondary issue, which only came about by the 2nd or 3rd year of the war, as the French started showing signs that they were about to intervene. Slavery was abolished in the rest of the world without wars - slaves were bought out and freed, so it wasn't about that, it was about power of federal government to enforce its will upon States.
Once government found a way to tax income and to counterfeit currency it grew immensely (because obviously when they print, they don't have anything backing the stuff, though Constitutionally gold and silver is money, not paper, and the Coinage act defines the amounts of gold/silver). Government became a system of growing government power for government officials and closely tied in businesses, not a system of providing liberties for people by people. It's basically a completely distorted version of what US was about. The income tax and fiat money were introduced in the same year - it's not a coincidence, it's because you can't really tax labor related transactions that are done in real money. But more importantly it was the time when things could be rammed through.
The 18th amendment is very closely tied to the 16th amendment, that's because the income of federal government was coming out of excise taxes, but 50% of income was coming from saloon taxes - alcohol sales.
Think about that. Basically once the 18 amendment was abolished, the 16th should have been abolished automatically.
Anyway, we'll see what happens soon, will people wake up to the fact that they are being robbed and prevented from working for themselves and enjoying fruits of their own labor, we'll see.
I don't have a huge opinion on the H1-B cap stuff, it really is not something I paid attention to. However if you get rid of regulations, you'd have many more Americans hire Americans, don't you think? This entire babysitter law that I brought up here, it's going to have fewer Americans hire even fewer Americans.
You cannot count on people acting in their own interests.
- over 99.99% of people act in their own interests or whatever they perceive as their interests most of the time. That's a made up statistic, but go ahead, tell me that it's not so. What are you saying, whose interest are people acting for?
In this day and age I'm astonished that it would even be suggested given that most of the country is still reeling from the real estate debacle
- that's a perfect example of people, who were acting in their own self interest, or so they thought. Of-course the government created the moral hazard of free money on one side and regulations that basically forced loosening of lending standards on the other. If you care to find out more, here is a speech given to Mortgage Bankers from Nov 13th 2006, which described in great detail what was going to happen in 2008 and exact reasons as to why it was going to happen. The market was spiked by the government pushing for this bubble, just like the government created agriculture stock bubble in 1929.
It's also disingenuous to compare the politics leading to Chernobyl with the politics of Fukishima, the governments are very different especially given the time frame of Chernobyl.
- it's NOT disingenuous, it doesn't matter what the ideology of a government is. What matters is that it is a government bureaucratic system, there is no reason to think that one bureaucracy is more responsible and is more knowledgeable and less corrupt than another.
Most people do not see the consequences for their actions because usually someone else ends up baring the cost so they continue until there is no one else left and then bust.
- Most people don't see the consequences of their actions because there is a government standing there, with all sorts of moral hazards. From 70Million USD liability caps for deep water oil drilling to FEMA insurance, to SS, to FDIC, whatever it is that government "insures" and "removes risk" from ends up being destroyed one way or another because of the moral hazard. Just like money, by the way. "Full faith and credit", give me a break. What faith? What credit? Biggest debtor in history that is also the biggest liar in history.
The market is only as good as the regulations force it to be.
- market regulations.
You might notice that when ATT was broken up there was a huge increase in productivity in the pieces bringing phone lines to increasingly rural parts of the country.
Bad regulation is obviously bad for everybody but bad regulation is usually lack of regulation due to non-enforcement.
- the only meaningful regulations are those, that are voted for by individual market participants with their money. All government regulations have a blow back (unintended consequences), like this babysitting law in LA, which is going to kill a lot of babysitting jobs. The only real regulations are money that are invested or spent by individuals.
NO, I am against all moves by government to create moral hazard, so when you say: government will have to remove liability from private companies, I say - NO.
There must be liability, that's the only way to ensure safety in a market economy. Without liability I agree with you, we can't have nuclear power done privately. Liability is paramount.
and what happens when a privately owned nuke melts down ? the corp won't pick up the pieces, that's for sure. no liability caps? what a joke.
- liability caps are moral hazard. That's what BP was operating under - a liability cap at 70 Million, so to them the risk to drill was very small - lose 70Million or gamble on something that saves you 500Million/month. When you say: "what a joke", I hope you mean your comment.
how about when a corp is so big it has a monopoly ?
- so what? A corporation can be as big as anything, but gov't has only one job that it must do: provide protection of liberty, private property, contract and military border protection. This is enough to give people the tools to have recourse against a company of any size.
1/total availability of ALL information to all players.
- doesn't matter. Fraud is fraud, and if a company commits fraud, that's a violation of contract.
infinite resources
- what is your point? Even the universe is not infinite. Businesses compete based on better business model, not on infinite resources.
infinite number of sellers
- this is absolutely unnecessary. In fact having a single business (a monopoly) is perfectly fine in free market. Any business can be a monopoly for some time, however business models change, knowledge changes, requirements change, products change and people change. Something that was a very good product at a very good price yesterday is old news tomorrow and this is where competition comes in.
infinite number of buyers.
- this makes no sense at all.
ALL damages to other players on the market should be compensated (like for example damage of second-hand smoke, global warming, chemicals released into the food-chain.
- DO YOU HAVE THAT WITH GOVERNMENT?
Come on, if you are going to come up with an argument, come up with an argument that makes some sense. Free market provides much more ability to have recourse against fraud and various abuses and transgressions than any government regulations could ever provide.
Sales taxes are the most fair taxes. Anybody who is not spending money on themselves but instead invest the money (or save it to invest) are deferring consumption, which means they are creating a pool of investment for businesses or are running a business.
As to the ability of those, who are poor to pay sales taxes, it's easy - have a reversed income tax, where if you desire to get your sales taxes back from the government, you must provide information about your employment, and you get a check back for earning less than certain amount (but you have to show the receipts). The less you earn and the more you spend, the more you get back.
Of-course income tax is never appropriate or Constitutional (and I am not considering the subversion of the document that the 16 amendment is legal, nor was 18th).
Government functions must be reduced to such a bare minimum, that excise/import/vice taxes would be enough to cover it.
until I see they are actually interested in supporting the states and municipals where they do business, then I can't seem to shed a tear for them.
- of-course Amazon doing business in states and municipalities IS supporting states and municipalities, because people who are buying from Amazon are doing it because they are getting a better deal. States and municipalities are people, not just space.
Also when a buyer spends less on an item, he can do something else with the rest of the money, invest it or spend it elsewhere.
As to corporations being 'treated like royalty', well this is funny. Businesses are what create jobs in the first place. Businesses already do more for economy by creating jobs, hiring people, who are earning money, before the businesses are even forced to pay taxes than any particular person does or any politician (I don't consider politicians to be people, they are a separate category of-course, except for Ron Paul and possibly Rand).
Yeah, do you know that they say Reagan 'saved SS'?
SS is a ponzi scheme, it's financed not by any fund but it relies on current payers to pay to current beneficiaries, and the future beneficiaries have to rely on future payers.
Do you know what Reagan and Tip O'Neill actually did?
In 1984 the payroll tax was raised from 10.8 to 11.4% and kept creeping up. They increased the amount of income subject to tax from 32400USD to 37800USD in one year (16.6%). So SS was raised in total by over 20% in one year. Also SS was originally (in 40s and 50s) paid by employees, not by self employed. However self employed didn't have to pay employer payroll portion of the tax. In 1983 they started collecting the "employer" payroll portion of the tax, so the SS tax went up from 6.8% to 14% 106% increase in one year. This + the SS tax increase of 16.6% described above, the effective rate of tax increase on self employed individuals was 140% tax hike in one year, and kept getting worse.
Reagan also imposed income taxes on SS benefits for higher earning individuals, which is means testing and reduction in benefits.
Reagan basically cut SS benefits for higher income people by applying income tax to SS benefits, while increasing taxes on higher income people by 140%.
When Romney says he'll keep SS around, what he means he'll have to raise taxes. However Obama came out with payroll tax cut, and he's likely to cut payroll taxes further.
I wonder what Obama thinks he is doing with SS? From my POV of-course SS is theft pure and simple.
But that's part of what I mean when I say Reagan became the biggest disappointment as POTUS.
If you have never been an employer in America, you are welcome to try it out and find out what labor regulations are really all about and how this will affect your decision to be a 'job creator'.
You are going to find out rather quickly that you don't want the hassle of hiring anybody.
Just look at a TINY portion of this SHIT. You have to collect their data to provide it to IRS. You have to give them 10 minute breaks per hour and 30 minute 'meal time', at all these times they are NOT responsible for your kid. You can't leave them with the kid for more than some 5 or so hours, I can't even parse the entire thing, it's fucking insane.
In case of anything that you do, that violates any of this insanity, you are liable for money, for being sued, etc.etc.etc.
WHO in their right mind wants to employ people in USA? This is just for BABYSITTING. Imagine what the regulations look like for anything else!
And I mean it, this is just a very small part of the entire bill. Oh, how do you like having to provide your babysitter with vacation time and having to give them a 21 day notice before they can be "let go"?
CHAPTER 2. DOMESTIC WORK EMPLOYEE RIGHTS
1455. (a) A domestic work employee who is required to be on duty for 24 consecutive hours or more shall have a minimum of eight consecutive hours for uninterrupted sleep, except in an emergency.........
(d) A domestic work employer shall pay a sum of fifty dollars ($50) to the domestic work employee for each day that the domestic employer violates this section.....
(c) A domestic work employer shall pay a sum of fifty dollars ($50) to the domestic work employee for each day that the domestic work employer violates this section.......
1458. (a) If a domestic work employee is required to report for work and does so report but is not put to work or is furnished less than half of his or her usual or scheduled day's work, the domestic work employee shall be paid for half the usual or scheduled day's work, but in no event for less than two hours nor more than four hours, at the domestic work employee's regular rate of pay, which shall not be less than the minimum wage.
(b) If a domestic work employee is required to report for work a second time in any one workday and is furnished less than two hours of work on the second time he or she reports for work, the domestic work employee shall be paid for two hours at the domestic work employee's regular rate of pay, which shall not be less than the minimum wage......
1459. (a) A domestic work employee shall earn a wage increase each year on the same day of the employee's original date of hire. The increase shall be in a percentage amount corresponding to the prior year's percentage increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers for California as computed by the Division of Labor Statistics and Research within the department.
(b) In any action brought to recover unpaid annual cost of living pay increases pursuant to Section 1453, a domestic work employee shall be entitled to recover liquidated damages in an amount equal to the wages unlawfully unpaid and interest thereon.....
1460. (a) A domestic work employer shall not employ a domestic work employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without a meal period of not less than
Why is my message confusing? The story is about a student who specified he wants to look at C++ projects. PostgreSQL is a good project to look at, but it's not C++. What's confusing here, really?
By the way, when I submit a bug report, how do I know if it's ever addressed? Thanks.
Not in a system that actually protects individual liberties and private property.
This protection can come from government but in absence of government this can in fact be done privately as well. Even uncle Sam pays private armies to do his bidding in all sorts of places.
Capitalism is just saving a capital and organizing land, labor and capital to make profit by selling something in the market.
What is funny about your reply though, is that you are in a story, which compares State built, State operated Chernobyl to private Fukushima that was only regulated by the State, and the causes of the accidents and the fallouts from them are both worse in the case of State built/operated Chernobyl, but you are trying to find a way to make it look as if private enterprise is worse somehow than something built in and by a command economy.
Slashdot Mirror
The only interesting numbers here are the ones that are showing total use, and this has everything to do with economics, which has everything to do with fiscal policy.
Total use is what people are able to spend on energy, which is part of their spending, and as more and more things are going up in price in dollars, people will still have to buy many of those things (food, shelter, clothing, medicine), they will have to cut where they can, and the first things to cut will be entertainment.
This means people go out less, they drive less, they also use less electrical power as they are looking for ways to save money to buy the absolute necessities.
US energy consumption is falling even where it concerns oil, that's due to the inflation and thus higher prices in dollar amounts, though measured in gold, the oil is cheapest in history.
September 2009 â" Current (US Population 307,006,550)
Total input to refineries 14,600,000 Barrels per day
Total Imported Crude and products 11,721,000 Barrels per day
Total Imported Crude 9,223,000 Barrels per day
Total Domestic Oil Production 5,444,000 Barrels per day
Gasoline Consumed 8,779,000 Barrels per day
Diesel Fuel Consumed 4,099,000 Barrels per day
September 2004 - 5 years ago (US Population 293,045,739)
Registered vehicles: 243,010,539 Passenger Cars: 136,430,651 Comm Aircraft: 8,186
Total input to refineries 15,254,000 Barrels per day
Total Imported Crude and products 13,438,000 Barrels per day
Total Imported Crude 9,697,000 Barrels per day
Total Domestic Oil Production 5,062,000 Barrels per day
Gasoline Consumed 7,993,000 Barrels per day
Diesel Fuel Consumed
Also here is a graph of per-capita consumption.
It's not a surprise that energy consumption is falling in USA, as the population has less and less that it can spend because less and less is produced domestically. Same thing that is applied to oil can be extrapolated to all other forms of energy.
Money does not fail.
Gold is money, anything else that is printed is a promise note - currency. Currencies fail.
Currencies fail, money does not.
Here is a clue by 4 - this is what US 10 year bonds have been doing since the 60s. Note how the yield is now lowest ever? The price for that bond is highest ever, while the currency is being printed out of existence, which is given to banks and by doing currency swaps it's also given to foreign national banks, all while foreign national banks also hoard US currency?
All of this currency goes into buying T-bills, so this is the clear indicator of where inflation is taking T-bills and thus where the reverse is going (interest rates on the 10 year bonds.)
This is the destruction path that I am talking about, this is going to burst and explode, and when it does, you are going to be stuck with nothing if you do not have real money.
Oh, and I wrote a couple of journal entries, one on HFT and the reasons as to why people don't understand it and don't understand what is causing it, and the other on this entire broken /. moderation system.
Enjoy
My take on HFT and how the complete misunderstanding of economics and inflation and the role of government prevents people from understanding the underlying reasons for the problem that HFT is becoming.
This is stupid. All the Germans who want one, will buy one over the Internet or will just buy one on their next trip to the neighboring Switzerland or some other place.
What a stupid thing to do.
The fundamental failure in this case is the failure of approaching the market from investor perspective, and this fundamental failure is incentivized by free money, just like the insane CEO pays and non-existing dividend yields.
The very reason WHY it is at all possible to trade stocks at these insane speeds is this: people do not see their purchases as investment, they are not looking for or getting dividend yields.
People who are purchasing stocks are not looking for an investment opportunity in the underlying business, they are looking for a way to flip the stock quickly and to make the money.
Automation of this process is INEVITABLE as all things that are repeatable and can be automated with some investment capital in order to make the process more efficient will be done. Investments will be made. Automation will remove the slow element in the equation - the human trader.
The fact that the stock market is now not providing investment opportunities, but is instead used to gamble in the hopes that the stock will move in the right direction (up or down), is based on the available amount of free (interest free) money that is provided into the financial system by the Federal reserve bank.
At this point that Bernanke promised to keep interest rates at 0%, expect more and more automation to happen in HFT, it is an inevitable result of this moral hazard.
The fact that the money is being debased quickly, and the so called "economists" - the modern era witch doctors of the kings are promoting this debasement and the fact that the majority of people are buying into this idea, that money needs to be destroyed and stocks are there for gambling and not for investment (not for business participation and not for dividends to be paid), this fact will also provide more space for this further perverse action.
The free money create incentives to gamble, destroy incentives to save, and people (here, on /.) are celebrating this very fact, while amusingly at the same time being perplexed and angered by the wider and wider spread of HFT.
In order to fix this problem, what should be done is the Federal reserve bank must be prevented from further debasement of currency. The market must be allowed to set the standards on what money is. The interest rates must be set by market pressures, not by government decree. Government must stop issuing debt that it cannot repay and it must liquidate the debt that exists.
Only this will allow the currency to become valuable enough to be saved, it will create competition pressure between sovereign debt and the corporate bonds, this will force the companies to pay an actual INTEREST on the bonds - DIVIDENDS, which will in turn lower the pay that the CEOs and other management gets out of profits and simultaneously this will allow the markets to become investment vehicles again, instead of being giant casinos.
---
Obviously, this again, will not be a popular or an understood opinion here, but it must be said.
I never said money is investment. You seem to misunderstand me completely.
Money is savings, it's not an investment. Real money is gold, it's not an investment. It is NOT an investment. Investment is a business. Business that makes money. Be it your own business or somebody else's business that you invest in.
Money is store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account. USD doesn't work as a store of value, here is the proof:
sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%
Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%
Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%
Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%
Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%
Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%
Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%
Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%
Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172%
Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130%
Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103%
Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51%
Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151%
Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25%
Pork Dec 2003: 48.68 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 92.06 cents/pound, price up by over 89%
Silver Dec 2003: 565.33 cents/Troy ounce, Apr 2011: 4,279.79 cents/Troy ounce, price up by over 657%
Alluminum Dec 2003: 1,557.78 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 2,667.44 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 71%
Uranium Dec 2003: 13.35 USD/pound, Apr 2011: 57.84 USD/pound, price up by over 333%
Iron Ore Dec 2003: 13.82 cents/dry Metric Ton, Apr 2011L: 179.26 cents/dry Metric Ton, price up by over 1197% (yeah, almost 1200%)
Gasoline Dec 2003
Why do people care about what Krugman has to say? This is the guy who believes that destruction of wealth is the necessary stimulus that USA needs and that it would be great to have destruction even if by wars or natural disasters?
He believes there is a real difference in economics between 'micro' and 'macro', which is same nonsense as when the same differences are applied to evolution, so if you ask him - would he like his own house to be destroyed by a tsunami/tornado/flood, I am sure he'd answer - no. It's not good when done to a particular person. Only entire nations need to suffer altogether in wars and alien invasions.
This is guy is a Keynesian charlattan, he has nothing to do with economics, but his type of 'economics' is pervasive, because the politicians love these guys. The politicians invite these sort of 'economists' to be in the white house to help with policy, and this is the kind of help you get, while the universities then decide to have only these kinds of 'economists' propagate this nonsense further, so you end up with only Keynesian ideology in higher education. Thus all the underlying problems in the economy - because politicians use this charlatanism to give excuse for their only real agenda - stealing your money.
OK, from TFA:
What we want from a monetary system isn't to make people holding money rich; we want it to facilitate transactions and make the economy as a whole rich. And that's not at all what is happening in Bitcoin.
- that's the problem. The entire fiscal policy of USA destroys the value of savings by inflation and this is what destroys the economy.
Bear in mind that dollar prices have been relatively stable over the past few years â" yes, some deflation in 2008-2009,
- RELATIVE TO WHAT, YOU DUMBO? Relative to other flawed currencies? :) Well, not to Swiss Franc. Not to Canadian dollar. Not to NZ dollar. Not to Australian Dollar.
Besides, 2008-2009 is a TERRIBLE time to compare, as too many people completely misunderstood what was happening in the real economy and plunged head first into the dollars, which was the absolute wrong thing to do (and it is wrong thing to do now too, but now people understand it. Look at kitco.com) Too many people actually think that Keynesian charlatanism is economics, so they fall in this trap of following completely wrong ideas.
Anyway, yes, it's deflation of assets in real terms, so in terms of gold/silver assets are falling in price. It's cheapest gasoline ever today - under 10cents for a gallon, but those are silver cents.
But the inflation is in dollars, which is why real money is going up.
then some inflation as commodity prices rebounded, but overall consumer prices are only slightly higher than they were three years ago. What that means is that if you measure prices in Bitcoins, they have plunged; the Bitcoin economy has in effect experienced massive deflation.
- GOOD. Good for those who hold Bitcoins. Bad for those who hold dollars.
And because of that, there has been an incentive to hoard the virtual currency rather than spending it. The actual value of transactions in Bitcoins has fallen rather than rising. In effect, real gross Bitcoin product has fallen sharply.
- This Keynesian wants you to be poor, do you understand that?
He wants you to pay 3.50USD for your gas, and BTW, he doesn't think it's high enough. They have a target to make it much higher. But he doesn't want you to pay 10 cents for that gallon.
So to the extent that the experiment tells us anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces the case against anything like a new gold standard â" because it shows just how vulnerable such a standard would
Except they haven't been 'creating jobs' for the last few years even though their profit margins have returned to normal.
- businesses do create jobs. Whatever jobs USA still has - those are created by businesses.
Of-course for the last 40 years now the businesses have been doing the obvious thing and moving jobs out of USA and other welfare states of the West, because those are welfare states, they counterfeit money and cause massive inflation, they destroy willingness of people to hire anybody by creating insane regulations, like this. I addressed a little of this on the Marx topic btw.
Profit margins don't mean much if your profits are below inflation, and inflation is rampant, it's between 10 and 13%, so this also creates perverse effects in insane CEO pay and investor gambling.
Businesses do not create jobs. People do. Consumers.
- oh boy. The only legitimate manner to consume is to produce something to exchange for the goods you want to consume.
Consumption is a trivial consequence of production. Without iPads nobody was 'consuming' them. Then Jobs came around, produced some iPads and consumers queued up at the Apple store entrances for days and nights to get those products. Jobs could have failed, and in fact Apple did fail with a product (starts with N), but this does not mean that consumers created that product.
That product was created, few people bought it, so it was unsuccessful. Again, more demand does drive production levels up, but the actual products are not created by consumers.
Real innovation starts with people creating products that nobody even knows can exist. Consumers. pffft.
Taxes on businesses cut into profits but most businesses can't or won't pass all of that on to consumers as the consumers will simply go to another company that offers a better price.
- oh, sure taxes are passed to consumers. Eventually all taxes are passed to consumers. The biggest tax is tax is inflation of-course, it's the worst tax of all, it's passed to everybody, but especially the middle-class and the poor people, who really can't afford to lose purchasing power, but government takes it away regardless while pretending otherwise.
I love how the pro-business folks always step up and say we are too hard on business when some of the highest taxed times on businesses have also been the most prosperous in US history.
- actually the highest taxes you are talking about were not on business, but were personal income taxes, which nobody paid anyway, the effective rate never went over 20% in USA, that's because at the time of those insane taxes, nobody was paying them, people were writing everything off and records were not computerized.
Obviously correlation of high taxes and production has nothing to do with causation. But in USA after the WWII, when the Great Depression ended in about 46-47, the taxes were lowered sharply as well as government spending, and that's when USA started gaining production and wealth again and for the next 20 years it was productive.
Right now businesses are only serving themselves and their CEO's, not their employees
- I addressed that - it's caused by government inflation and turning financial markets into casinos with counterfeit currency.
There has been a huge trend in the last decade to avoid taxes at any cost
- obviously. There is a good reason for it, I addressed part of it here. It's because taxes in USA are insane (and Reagan made them more insane
ECO 101 doesn't get into anything beyond the demand/supply curves and utility functions, they are not even starting on the Keynesian charlatanism yet in those classes, 101 is at least bearable.
You should read my journal entry on why Marx was not right (it was the reply to the story just the other day.)
You'll drive it down a bit by removing regulation, but not enough.
- really? Just look at that proposal. Collecting information for IRS on your babysitter. Having to pay State minimum wage. Having to give 10 minute and 30 minute breaks, during which the babysitter is not responsible for what happens to the kid - (this alone means you need 2 babysitters, or what?) Having all sorts of minimums and maximums on hours, and even a proposal for paid vacation leave, some weird stuff on 'meal time', etc.etc. You think this will not create unemployment?
How about the mothers who'll stay home instead, because now they just can't hire babysitter? How about restaurants/theaters who'll see reduction of business, because people just can't go outside? I am certain that this regulation was written not without significant 'help' from some lobbyist working for an 'institutional' day care provider or something of that type.
It's insane nonsense and it's pervasive throughout the entire system, and you don't think this creates unemployment? In a country with over 20% unemployment/underemployment? Well, if you can't get passed your conditioning on the "social justice" (or whatever it is) in this case, then I guess you are right - who cares about those folks, all of them, those who need babysitters and those who need that income.
Who can trust a CA? Why would you trust a CA? How did a CA earn your trust?
Mozilla, it's time to own up. This is a bunch of nonsense. Stop treating self signed certificates like cancer, provide a way to see the fingerprint clearly, don't bother with the 'lock' icon and start working on some real innovation - how to do trust by having distributed lists of fingerprints, signatures, whatever. Something that doesn't rely on a signing authority at all.
You want to do real innovation instead of looking at hiding address bar from the users? Do this instead.
Collection of income taxes actually violates your rights, which area also explicitly stated in the 4th and 5th amendments. There is nothing right at all about income tax, actually the first time an income tax was introduced (and fiat money by the way), was during the Civil War, which should never have been fought in the first place. So many Americans died in it, more than in either WWI or WWII. The slavery was a secondary issue, which only came about by the 2nd or 3rd year of the war, as the French started showing signs that they were about to intervene. Slavery was abolished in the rest of the world without wars - slaves were bought out and freed, so it wasn't about that, it was about power of federal government to enforce its will upon States.
Once government found a way to tax income and to counterfeit currency it grew immensely (because obviously when they print, they don't have anything backing the stuff, though Constitutionally gold and silver is money, not paper, and the Coinage act defines the amounts of gold/silver). Government became a system of growing government power for government officials and closely tied in businesses, not a system of providing liberties for people by people. It's basically a completely distorted version of what US was about. The income tax and fiat money were introduced in the same year - it's not a coincidence, it's because you can't really tax labor related transactions that are done in real money. But more importantly it was the time when things could be rammed through.
The 18th amendment is very closely tied to the 16th amendment, that's because the income of federal government was coming out of excise taxes, but 50% of income was coming from saloon taxes - alcohol sales.
Think about that. Basically once the 18 amendment was abolished, the 16th should have been abolished automatically.
Anyway, we'll see what happens soon, will people wake up to the fact that they are being robbed and prevented from working for themselves and enjoying fruits of their own labor, we'll see.
I don't have a huge opinion on the H1-B cap stuff, it really is not something I paid attention to. However if you get rid of regulations, you'd have many more Americans hire Americans, don't you think? This entire babysitter law that I brought up here, it's going to have fewer Americans hire even fewer Americans.
You cannot count on people acting in their own interests.
- over 99.99% of people act in their own interests or whatever they perceive as their interests most of the time. That's a made up statistic, but go ahead, tell me that it's not so. What are you saying, whose interest are people acting for?
In this day and age I'm astonished that it would even be suggested given that most of the country is still reeling from the real estate debacle
- that's a perfect example of people, who were acting in their own self interest, or so they thought. Of-course the government created the moral hazard of free money on one side and regulations that basically forced loosening of lending standards on the other. If you care to find out more, here is a speech given to Mortgage Bankers from Nov 13th 2006, which described in great detail what was going to happen in 2008 and exact reasons as to why it was going to happen. The market was spiked by the government pushing for this bubble, just like the government created agriculture stock bubble in 1929.
It's also disingenuous to compare the politics leading to Chernobyl with the politics of Fukishima, the governments are very different especially given the time frame of Chernobyl.
- it's NOT disingenuous, it doesn't matter what the ideology of a government is. What matters is that it is a government bureaucratic system, there is no reason to think that one bureaucracy is more responsible and is more knowledgeable and less corrupt than another.
Most people do not see the consequences for their actions because usually someone else ends up baring the cost so they continue until there is no one else left and then bust.
- Most people don't see the consequences of their actions because there is a government standing there, with all sorts of moral hazards. From 70Million USD liability caps for deep water oil drilling to FEMA insurance, to SS, to FDIC, whatever it is that government "insures" and "removes risk" from ends up being destroyed one way or another because of the moral hazard. Just like money, by the way. "Full faith and credit", give me a break. What faith? What credit? Biggest debtor in history that is also the biggest liar in history.
The market is only as good as the regulations force it to be.
- market regulations.
You might notice that when ATT was broken up there was a huge increase in productivity in the pieces bringing phone lines to increasingly rural parts of the country.
- and you might not have noticed, (because you weren't born then), that AT&T monopoly was a government creation in the first place, which incidentally killed about 4000 competitors by government regulations and taxes.
Bad regulation is obviously bad for everybody but bad regulation is usually lack of regulation due to non-enforcement.
- the only meaningful regulations are those, that are voted for by individual market participants with their money. All government regulations have a blow back (unintended consequences), like this babysitting law in LA, which is going to kill a lot of babysitting jobs. The only real regulations are money that are invested or spent by individuals.
NO, I am against all moves by government to create moral hazard, so when you say: government will have to remove liability from private companies, I say - NO.
There must be liability, that's the only way to ensure safety in a market economy. Without liability I agree with you, we can't have nuclear power done privately. Liability is paramount.
and what happens when a privately owned nuke melts down ? the corp won't pick up the pieces, that's for sure. no liability caps? what a joke.
- liability caps are moral hazard. That's what BP was operating under - a liability cap at 70 Million, so to them the risk to drill was very small - lose 70Million or gamble on something that saves you 500Million/month. When you say: "what a joke", I hope you mean your comment.
how about when a corp is so big it has a monopoly ?
- so what? A corporation can be as big as anything, but gov't has only one job that it must do: provide protection of liberty, private property, contract and military border protection. This is enough to give people the tools to have recourse against a company of any size.
1/total availability of ALL information to all players.
- doesn't matter. Fraud is fraud, and if a company commits fraud, that's a violation of contract.
infinite resources
- what is your point? Even the universe is not infinite. Businesses compete based on better business model, not on infinite resources.
infinite number of sellers
- this is absolutely unnecessary. In fact having a single business (a monopoly) is perfectly fine in free market. Any business can be a monopoly for some time, however business models change, knowledge changes, requirements change, products change and people change. Something that was a very good product at a very good price yesterday is old news tomorrow and this is where competition comes in.
infinite number of buyers.
- this makes no sense at all.
ALL damages to other players on the market should be compensated (like for example damage of second-hand smoke, global warming, chemicals released into the food-chain.
- DO YOU HAVE THAT WITH GOVERNMENT?
Come on, if you are going to come up with an argument, come up with an argument that makes some sense. Free market provides much more ability to have recourse against fraud and various abuses and transgressions than any government regulations could ever provide.
Sales taxes are the most fair taxes. Anybody who is not spending money on themselves but instead invest the money (or save it to invest) are deferring consumption, which means they are creating a pool of investment for businesses or are running a business.
As to the ability of those, who are poor to pay sales taxes, it's easy - have a reversed income tax, where if you desire to get your sales taxes back from the government, you must provide information about your employment, and you get a check back for earning less than certain amount (but you have to show the receipts). The less you earn and the more you spend, the more you get back.
Of-course income tax is never appropriate or Constitutional (and I am not considering the subversion of the document that the 16 amendment is legal, nor was 18th).
Government functions must be reduced to such a bare minimum, that excise/import/vice taxes would be enough to cover it.
until I see they are actually interested in supporting the states and municipals where they do business, then I can't seem to shed a tear for them.
- of-course Amazon doing business in states and municipalities IS supporting states and municipalities, because people who are buying from Amazon are doing it because they are getting a better deal. States and municipalities are people, not just space.
Also when a buyer spends less on an item, he can do something else with the rest of the money, invest it or spend it elsewhere.
As to corporations being 'treated like royalty', well this is funny. Businesses are what create jobs in the first place. Businesses already do more for economy by creating jobs, hiring people, who are earning money, before the businesses are even forced to pay taxes than any particular person does or any politician (I don't consider politicians to be people, they are a separate category of-course, except for Ron Paul and possibly Rand).
Yeah, do you know that they say Reagan 'saved SS'?
SS is a ponzi scheme, it's financed not by any fund but it relies on current payers to pay to current beneficiaries, and the future beneficiaries have to rely on future payers.
Do you know what Reagan and Tip O'Neill actually did?
In 1984 the payroll tax was raised from 10.8 to 11.4% and kept creeping up. They increased the amount of income subject to tax from 32400USD to 37800USD in one year (16.6%). So SS was raised in total by over 20% in one year. Also SS was originally (in 40s and 50s) paid by employees, not by self employed. However self employed didn't have to pay employer payroll portion of the tax. In 1983 they started collecting the "employer" payroll portion of the tax, so the SS tax went up from 6.8% to 14% 106% increase in one year. This + the SS tax increase of 16.6% described above, the effective rate of tax increase on self employed individuals was 140% tax hike in one year, and kept getting worse.
Reagan also imposed income taxes on SS benefits for higher earning individuals, which is means testing and reduction in benefits.
Reagan basically cut SS benefits for higher income people by applying income tax to SS benefits, while increasing taxes on higher income people by 140%.
When Romney says he'll keep SS around, what he means he'll have to raise taxes. However Obama came out with payroll tax cut, and he's likely to cut payroll taxes further.
I wonder what Obama thinks he is doing with SS? From my POV of-course SS is theft pure and simple.
But that's part of what I mean when I say Reagan became the biggest disappointment as POTUS.
Oh, California. What laws can't you pass with your crazy politics?
Proposed California Babysitter Law Could Give Workers More Benefits but Sparks Outrage
If you have never been an employer in America, you are welcome to try it out and find out what labor regulations are really all about and how this will affect your decision to be a 'job creator'.
You are going to find out rather quickly that you don't want the hassle of hiring anybody.
Just look at a TINY portion of this SHIT. You have to collect their data to provide it to IRS. You have to give them 10 minute breaks per hour and 30 minute 'meal time', at all these times they are NOT responsible for your kid. You can't leave them with the kid for more than some 5 or so hours, I can't even parse the entire thing, it's fucking insane.
In case of anything that you do, that violates any of this insanity, you are liable for money, for being sued, etc.etc.etc.
WHO in their right mind wants to employ people in USA? This is just for BABYSITTING. Imagine what the regulations look like for anything else!
And I mean it, this is just a very small part of the entire bill. Oh, how do you like having to provide your babysitter with vacation time and having to give them a 21 day notice before they can be "let go"?
CHAPTER 2. DOMESTIC WORK EMPLOYEE RIGHTS
1455. (a) A domestic work employee who is required to be on duty ........ ....
for 24 consecutive hours or more shall have a minimum of eight
consecutive hours for uninterrupted sleep, except in an emergency.
(d) A domestic work employer shall pay a sum of fifty dollars
($50) to the domestic work employee for each day that the domestic
employer violates this section.
(c) A domestic work employer shall pay a sum of fifty dollars ...... ..... ....
($50) to the domestic work employee for each day that the domestic
work employer violates this section.
1458. (a) If a domestic work employee is required to report for
work and does so report but is not put to work or is furnished less
than half of his or her usual or scheduled day's work, the domestic
work employee shall be paid for half the usual or scheduled day's
work, but in no event for less than two hours nor more than four
hours, at the domestic work employee's regular rate of pay, which
shall not be less than the minimum wage.
(b) If a domestic work employee is required to report for work a
second time in any one workday and is furnished less than two hours
of work on the second time he or she reports for work, the domestic
work employee shall be paid for two hours at the domestic work
employee's regular rate of pay, which shall not be less than the
minimum wage.
1459. (a) A domestic work employee shall earn a wage increase
each year on the same day of the employee's original date of hire.
The increase shall be in a percentage amount corresponding to the
prior year's percentage increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index
for urban wage earners and clerical workers for California as
computed by the Division of Labor Statistics and Research within the
department.
(b) In any action brought to recover unpaid annual cost of living
pay increases pursuant to Section 1453, a domestic work employee
shall be entitled to recover liquidated damages in an amount equal to
the wages unlawfully unpaid and interest thereon.
1460. (a) A domestic work employer shall not employ a domestic
work employee for a work period of more than five hours per day
without a meal period of not less than
Why is my message confusing? The story is about a student who specified he wants to look at C++ projects. PostgreSQL is a good project to look at, but it's not C++. What's confusing here, really?
By the way, when I submit a bug report, how do I know if it's ever addressed? Thanks.
Am I from Mars?
Who do you think checks the safety of private airplanes, private ships, private roads, private buildings? Aliens from space?
Not in a system that actually protects individual liberties and private property.
This protection can come from government but in absence of government this can in fact be done privately as well. Even uncle Sam pays private armies to do his bidding in all sorts of places.
Capitalism is just saving a capital and organizing land, labor and capital to make profit by selling something in the market.
What is funny about your reply though, is that you are in a story, which compares State built, State operated Chernobyl to private Fukushima that was only regulated by the State, and the causes of the accidents and the fallouts from them are both worse in the case of State built/operated Chernobyl, but you are trying to find a way to make it look as if private enterprise is worse somehow than something built in and by a command economy.