Full scale nonsense, as it was never observed in history of capitalist US market, that those with money were not interesting in growing it through investment into businesses, which grew the US economy over 19 century. Your entire premise that that people do not want to increase their capital through investing their money is completely false on the face of the fact that on the gold standard, USA became the most productive and efficient economy in 19 century, while gold was increasing in price.
You give me a link, I'll give one back to you, it's called the 'inflation calculator'. Put in the starting date at 1800, the end date at 1913 and use 1 dollar and calculate inflation rate.
Here is what it produces:
What cost $1 in 1800 would cost $0.58 in 1913.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 1913 and 1800, they would cost you $1 and $1.76 respectively.
then put in start date at 1914 and end date at 2010, still use 1 dollar, and here is what you get:
What cost $1 in 1914 would cost $21.50 in 2010.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2010 and 1914, they would cost you $1 and $0.05 respectively.
Now, I disagree with the way they calculate current inflation. I calculated that it is 76% just from 2003, but whatever, their calculator is informative anyway, and your comment:
The period of 1800-1900 was evidently not "deflation at the time".
- is again, a fail.
The dollar was gaining in value, firstly because almost every other civilized country on the western hemisphere was growing at that time, secondly because it was backed by an inflating supply of gold (the US was one of the biggest gold producers at the time), thirdly because the US had a very rapid influx of population, lots of migrating workers eager to increase the international value of the fixed supply of dollars.
- you even contradict yourself. Gold cannot simply go up in value due to US being the biggest producer of it. The more of it is produced, the less relative value it has.
As to France - its a huge socialist state, whenever I go there (every now and then), I am amazed at the disparity between the grandeur of the past and the poverty derived from this failing social experiment they started with their revolutions. Well, at least they didn't go full 'USSR' there, they had some sense.
Again, stick to your fiat, I really wish you good luck with that strategy.
Well, you can consider yourself lucky if they teach some history at least.
- whatever they taught me back in the USSR, I didn't believe most of it and I was right. Everybody is out to indoctrinate you in their own propaganda, but hey, nobody can force you to believe one thing or another if you can think and do your own studying.
Do you mean that it could be less expensive, or that it is unnecessary at all? Pharmaceutical industries are known for having abused of their position in the past.
- what I mean in reality of-course is that FDA should not even exist. But at the very least, it must not be in business preventing inventions/drugs/equipment from hitting the store-shelves once they prove safety.
FDA forces the companies to prove various levels of efficacy, I know because I unfortunately dealt with some of that through my early stocks, which I don't own anymore because of that, that was years ago. This pushes prices up severely, but in reality what should be done is that efficacy should be left up to the doctors to decide, who normally share their information, and then we must be able to evaluate the doctors on their performance in the market place as well.
I don't really know if your Constitution explicitly enumerates all of your rights,
- it's totally broken. The original didn't enumerate anything, but then they started adding 'amendments', totally f'd up people's understanding of what rights are.
In reality individuals have all rights, and Constitution only specifies what rights belong to the government and what is the dynamic between the individual rights and the collective powers, but not the rights themselves.
But rights are all negative, as in: the government is not allowed to kill you for example, without due process, you see? It's not that gov't allows you to live, it's that it's not allowed to kill you without due process, to take away your possessions without due process, to incarcerate you without due process, etc.
Original purpose of the Federal gov't, which was ratified (agreed upon) by separate States was to maintain enough military to protect against invasion and to provide a working justice system for criminal and contract law. That was it. That's what the separate States agreed upon. This was eventually broken, usurped and totally subverted, so I am quite surprised that there still no second civil war happening right now, to break out of the union.
For instance, the right to physical integrity means that you can't operate a factory that harms the health of the people living in its surroundings; and the difference between western countries and developing countries, is that in our case this right is actually enforced by passing laws that uphold it, and administering penalties to those who don't observe them. This becomes an handicap for our companies because the "proper way" to behave is usually not the "cheapest way".
- there is a huge misunderstanding on this by pretty much most people in the world.
You see, poor economies in poor countries cannot afford high levels of technology, that would allow them to keep the pollution to a minimum, but very highly technologically developed countries do not need an incentive due to the profit motive, because for them it just makes sense to keep the process as efficient as possible, this really means energy efficiency. The second most important part, which is almost always misunderstood is that the concept of private property must be respected for the free market capitalism to work, but this really relies on the court system, that's the real main purpose of a government - to provide a way to do recourse in case of damage.
Instead what the gov't ended up doing is removing the personal liability from companies' management by setting up a corporation, which literally exists to limit personal liability.
This is the huge problem that the government has created - remove
enormous inflation is mainly theft from past generations
- well yes, if they hold the flawed fiat, and those of us who have a clue do not do such a stupid stupid ridiculous, dumb, thing.
Too little (negative real inflation or deflation), which is mainly theft from future generations: it throttles economic activity and encourages unfair hoarding.
- 19 century USA calls, says you are wrong.
There was deflation at the time, dollar was gaining value, prices were dropping, total wealth - production capacity was increasing, the future generations got a better outcome from that than the past.
So if you want a fair society, one which rewards hard work fairly, regardless of where and when you were born (do you want one? I have to ask because it's not a given.), then we have to find a middle-of-the-road of value for inflation which neither steals from past (through too high inflation), nor from future generations (through too low inflation).
- I don't want anything that somebody defines as 'fair'.
I want an equal opportunity, which requires that the government stays out of our lives, otherwise it protects the old interests in all forms: from SS to the retirees, to subsidies to their preferred monopolies.
Inflation is the disease that the government pushes upon the society, as inflation drives savings out and destroys productivity and thus wealth, leaves society in the hands of government, who then borrows and causes huge debts to be accumulated and then the future generations are stuck what that debt that can never be repaid.
In a simplified model this 'ideal' value for inflation is roughly at the rate of growth of the economy: this does not let past work devalue (whatever is inflated away is won back by you owning currency of a country that is N percent stronger).
- all fiat currencies are flawed, as none of them are backed by anything substantial. Some are weaker and some are stronger relative to each other, but in the inflationary environment of government printing presses, all of them lose to gold.
Now where does gold stand in this picture? If you argue a classic gold standard, with a fixed monetary base then it's sadly close to the extreme deflation end of it: it causes a real negative inflation rate of the growth of the country. It's not the worst hyper-deflation outcome, but it's close to it: it perpetually steals at least growth% amount of resources from future generations, per year.
- ridiculous assertion, in the face of the fact, which you are unwilling to confront, that the USA of 19 century had real deflation, money was growing in value while productivity and wealth was increasing and society was becoming more affluent due to real competition and mostly absent government.
Gold is forced redistribution of wealth to those who already have amassed gold...
- gold is not wealth, it's money. So as somebody works and makes their money, they re-invest (as again, history proves) to make more money, and this allows businesses to take that loan and invest.
What valuable currency, such as gold does, it forces the businesses to be risk averse and really to make sure their business is sound. Government printing free money, gives wrong incentives and moral hazards, and businesses start gambling, resulting in inflation of asset bubbles (because free money is inflating the value of fiat, so store of value has to be shifted somewhere else).
No, the reason that there were bank runs had nothing to do with absence of gold, it had everything to do with banks trying to cheat their way into bigger earnings via fractional reserve, those banks then often collapsed, but while it affected that bank and the depositors in it, the banks were never 'too big to fail', as they become under the flawed fiat and controlling government.
you assume that leisure is separate from work, while it's almost always not.... find types of work for themselves that serve both purposes.
- having a satisfying job is still working to some productive end. You can't redefine leisure as work, don't try.
Work is a lot more than about directly measurable material/intellectual output -
- work is always about directly measurable material/intellectual output.
Even completely abstract math is work, which produces a theory or a proof - product of that work. This means the rest of your comment is meaningless once again, and you don't get the satisfaction.
Wealth is production capacity - products and services we create. But it is all the things society needs to survive and be prosperous - plentiful production capacity.
Gold is a way to store wealth, define unit of account and as a medium of exchange - it's money.
Fiat is the flawed, regressed expression of promise notes, which once were backed by real money - gold, but eventually the politicians found way around it, and that was the real default, when US government stopped exchanging dollars for gold as they promised, so when they say that US cannot default, they are lying, US has defaulted already, when they got off the gold standard.
The thefts is perpetrated by the government, who steals the purchasing power of all dollars that are already in existence, and that's why the sensible thing to do is not to be in fiat.
Wealth is work and gold is money, if you are going to quote me back to me, get your freaking quotes right, OK?
Do you realize that today a gold backed currency is actually theft from future generations ?
- no, currency that is not backed by any work or something tangible is theft from future generations, because such currency ends up creating enormous inflation, which both: pushes production out to places, where the value of money is not destroyed as much, and secondly because destruction of currency leads to giant debt, which those future generations then get stuck with.
What possible justification can you provide to your asinine assertion?
Do you deny that you have no idea on the subject of economics and are still trying to participate in the discussion, where you clearly do not belong?
The quote was nevertheless misleading as presented, it was taken out of fair context
- nope. It was fully in context.
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
- He repeated the question that was asked of him to clarify, didn't get an objection from the reporter and then he answered the question in short form.
There is nothing out of context there.
Note, I do not claim that you quoted out of context intentionally. (the press does this rather consciously)
- and what would be my motivation even to try and take his words out of context? Did I pass a moral judgment in that comment on the merits of his statement? Nope. That comment is very short, you won't find anything there beyond his statement and the fact that I pointed out that he is not th entire GNU movement.
You should go, have outrage at something else, this cow has been milked dry I think.
1. Works is activity by humans or by machines or even by other living creatures that is done to achieve some goal. Normally the goal is something tangible.
2. Whether work is done for pay or for other reasons, there is no major difference, again there is some goal that needs to be achieved, so somebody is trying to achieve it and that's work, (which is opposed to leisure, when people's goal is not to achieve any particular goal, but to enjoy some activity, because they like it.)
3. Work has a very rigid connection to creation of products and services.
Your argument is empty, that's why you get no satisfaction.
Not at all. A right is that which is due someone by moral or legal principle.
- nothing is due to anybody by any principle that we call a 'right'. Right is something that we establish to make sure that the collective cannot destroy the individual in any way, including physical and economic. Nobody is due anything to you or me, well maybe you are royalty, then it's a different story, isn't it?
So you don't accept the right to a trial by jury?
- that's a negative right, so that the government cannot do onto you things that it decides are correct.
Obviously I see that this requires some people to be called to be juries, which can mean that they are forced to serve as the jury, which is a problem in itself, as this does look like force applied to somebody, nearly denying them the right to be free of such detention by the government.
I must reconcile this particular problem by stating that at least the jury must be compensated for their expenses and in some States for lost income. Unfortunately, until we invent robots that can serve as juries, somebody must do it, and elected officials must not be allowed to be the juries themselves, because of conflict of interest.
Of course you can. You have the right to health care, because a society in which everyone cannot obtain basic requirements is fatally flawed and unsustainable. You do not have the right to your own airplane, because a society in which everyone cannot obtain their own airplane is not fatally flawed.
- nonsense. The society that decides it's going to compel its members by force, to pay for treatment, or any other service, for individuals in it, is fatally flawed, not the other way around.
I disagree with you fundamentally on what is correct and what is fatally flawed.
The natural rights are simply the operating requirements of a human person. They include food, clothing, shelter, medical care, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- wrong.
Wrong.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have right to food, clothing, shelter, medical care.
You do have the right to PURSUE those things and happiness, but you are not going to have rights like that, because that literally means somebody else must give you those things, and then that means those people are denied their own rights to their own work, property, pursuit of happiness, they become the slaves in the system, and I can't imagine people wanting to be slaves.
Yes, there is. If I beat you to death, I have clearly violated your rights.
- nope.
If you beat somebody to death, it only means you may stand criminal trial for a criminal offense. But you didn't take away their right - you and that person never had an agreement on what rights are between you two.
The agreement is not between any individuals in the system, it's between the collective and the individual to specify what the right is for the individuals, that the collective cannot take away.
Yes. Please come back when you have.
- well, based on your comment here, you are as confused now, as you were before, so.... too bad.
But I am saying that the idiocy in this case is believing that rights are applicable as a concept to things, that cannot participate in our economy, because rights are established as a relationship between participants in the economy - individuals and the government, which is created by the individuals in order to provide military protection and justice system for criminal and contract law to promote the economy.
Unless those brains actually start working in the economy and supplying it with something useful for the rest of the population, saying they can have rights of real people is retarded.
Rights have everything to do with participation in economy, as rights are established only in the context of defining the relationship between government and individual and the very reason to have government in a society is to have military protection and a working justice system for criminal and contract law, so that economy could function.
Children are clearly participants in the economy, as they are produced by their parents - current economy participants and will hopefully grow up and become full participants themselves.
Of-course you can deny all of what I wrote by saying I am 'ignorant' on the topic, but there is nothing else I need to tell you, beyond what I wrote in those other responses. Your opinion is your opinion.
I'm too young to remember 1965 - I'm talking about the present time, especially in developing countries which seem to get to do all the manufacturing these days.
- history should really be learned, it's important to have perspective. Of-course they don't teach real history in government paid for schools, because how would that push the agenda forward, that government needs to be involved in economy at all?
For example talking about manufacturing and history: USA became the manufacturing powerhouse of the world in 19 century, when capital was fleeing other nations to come to USA, because of the lack of government involvement in economy in USA. Gov't was small, it was paid for by excise/alcohol taxes. It involved itself only in the largest enterprises - mainly rail roads, shipping companies and military, so most of the rest of the economy was Free, while government was creating robber barons and tycoons of the world in a small number of industries.
So USA was borrowing money in total, but the borrowed money was borrowed mostly privately from abroad and the money was used to build up production capacity - factories, machines, etc. Eventually this investment started generating enough profit to pay back the old loans, and USA started producing so much, that over 19 century the value of the dollar went up by x2, while high level of competition between businesses, pushed prices down, so there was generally deflation in amount of available credit and prices were falling, but the wealth was growing. Wealth is production capacity - products and services that people have access to in the economy, and the lowering prices were great for the poor. The middle class appeared from urbanization (small businesses/professionals), the women became mostly free, as they didn't have to be baby making machines for the farmers anymore, as the economy shifted from 95% food production, to only 5% food production. The entire concept of child labor, women's rights, slave labor, none of it could really be addressed by a poor society, that had most people just at subsistence level.
Mid-19 century was the time that businesses in USA started providing some types of health insurance (people normally paid out of pocket, as quality and competition were going up for medical care, and prices were very affordable), so selling insurance was hard, but people bought certain types that covered mostly accidents. By 1960s, more people in USA were in private insurance than in Blue Shield/Cross, as private insurance provided better and cheaper coverage, but most people paid for medical procedures out of pocket, because it was cheap.
BTW., many say that medical treatment became more expensive because there was lots of innovation: new medications, machines, etc. - pure nonsense. The reason prices went up and keep doing so is government money in that, which provide ability to get that money for those companies. Electronics are more sophisticated every year, yet prices fall (especially on older models), people still keep buying today, they don't wait until next year to get a TV 15% cheaper. The new medical equipment is no more complex than a new microprocessor or a car, the new medical equipment makes procedures faster, safer, with better outcomes - in real market the prices would be falling quickly.
FDA is a huge reason why prices for medical equipment and medications and procedures are so high. Proving efficacy as well as safety is unnecessarily expensive. The money that comes out of government pockets (and really by destroying the economy via printing/borrowing/taxing) pushes prices up in all things government touches, from insurance to medical treatments, to education, to military, to transportation, to energy, to food production, to housing, to failed business valuations, etc.etc. yet people do not understand this and keep believing that rising prices is in their best interest (Fed is fighting for inflation and they are winning that fight, and even most/. readers believe this is
I believed socialists countries like Sweden or Norway did not in fact buy votes from the mob; they provide good basic services to all people, such as education, healthcare, etc. What you are referring to is a part of populism and of lobbying, and has nothing to do with the fine socialist tradition we have in North Europe.
- politicians are buying the votes by catering to the majority - labor and by screwing the minority - business owners, it's very simple.
As to Sweden and Norway - yes, those are quite socialist, and I would not for a second want to live there, I moved from USSR to Israel, then Canada and US and then to Lucerne and Asia, because for me it is important to have freedom to do business, I want as little government intrusion into my business as possible. Sweden and Norway, by the way, are slowly moving away from their super-socialist ways, because they know they can't survive like that, eventually they'll be crashed, like Greece and Portugal, because in reality, those who build businesses compete globally today, and global competition will not care about your local social obligations, which will make your business uncompetitive because of high taxes, various business regulations and various labor laws that distort the market and cause prices to rise always for running business, making hiring in places, that have too much of that unattractive and impossible to survive in.
And if you think of socialism in a negative way,
- oh, of-course I do. I was born in the USSR and I can't stand even the slightest mentioning of socialist ideology. To me left wing socialism is about as attractive as a system as right wing fascism - state controlling the businesses in order to maintain power through the rule of the mob.
I got to school for free
- not free. You did not pay the price, but it was not free. The sacrifice came in form of higher costs of products/services in the market through less choice, due to government involvement, lower quality, monopolization of the market, destruction of competition, reduction of profit and thus reduction of savings and thus reduction in new businesses, that could benefit from those savings, which eventually leads to stagnation, and as the social obligations eventually become unbearable, this leads to destruction of currency, because one thing the mob cannot stand, is reduction of their supposedly 'free' services, but subsidies, as I mentioned in earlier comments, cannot last forever.
If government creates an environment, in which it can extract enough savings capital from the work of others, so that subsidies can be given to population to buy votes (or to keep your preferred type of society, if you don't like the way I put it), then it means simply this: government is reducing the efficiency of the market and is mis-allocating resources for reasons that are political, which eventually will destroy the economy of that society (and rate of destruction varies from country to country) and then it's very likely, that the money itself will be debased, again, as the mob cannot stand the reduction of its 'free' services, so money will be borrowed and printed and mis-allocated towards those 'free' services.
I am for a sound economy, I am for free market capitalism, because that's the system that has shown to provide such economy without the intervention of the governments and in fact even despite those interventions. I want a sound economy, I want innovation, inventions, products and services - which are wealth, to be produced by the free market due to capital savings, not government enforcement, which is destructive to the economy and eventually to the wealth of the society.
Contrast with the US, what you call "a socialist" country.
- over 25% of the people are on food stamps, 50% of the lower income population pays no income taxes, while the majority of those taxes are paid by the top 25%, the political structure, that
No, if I "tried hard", I would have not provided the link to the source. I provided the exact sentence, didn't take it out of context, didn't cut it in any place, it was the complete response to one concrete question.
The question was about proprietary software, RMS makes a distinction between that and custom made software. The question in this thread was about proprietary software. Your silly allegations are without any merit.
Higher wages shouldn't make things cost more, they should make anyone not directly providing the work have less profit.
- no, what the laws are for is to give the majority of the voters reason to elect those, who push these laws forward.
When you have government involved in business, it's all about money and votes for the politicians, and it's easy to be popular when you advocate taking profit from those greedy rich bastards, running the business, and give it to those hardworking, honorable workers.
However for those very workers, voting this way is about short term profit and not about long terms sustainability of the business. Maybe you noticed that in USA there are almost no trade unions left in private businesses (if there are at all today), but the only place where the unions are thriving is the government? That's because the unions eventually cause the business either to fold, as it cannot compete under those conditions or to move, and then jobs disappear altogether. Government, however, does not need to balance its books. Gov't took the advice of Keynes to the extreme, even he wouldn't be for what passes for his ideology today: run huge deficits during times good and run enormous deficits during times bad. He was for running deficits during times bad but paying debts out during good times. But where are the money in that for politicians? There must be no unions in government, AFAIC, because there is no employer at the table.
Employer gets the shaft, when the government unions negotiate with politicians - it's basic racket: politicians give unions whatever unions want in exchange for votes. The actual employer - tax payer, gets the bill.
As I said in previous comment (which will be moderated down to oblivion, they always do that for no reason, other than they don' tlike the message): higher wages are not the main component of the business cost today. Government regulations, taxes, cost of compliance, cost of inflation upon the savings are the main components.
But you missed my point entirely: absent government destroying the free market, the market pushes prices down and money becomes more valuable, as USA had in 19 century, which started with a dollar that was half the value as by the time the century was over, and prices went down, and businesses thrived even though competition was very high, and innovation and inventions were done privately all the time, improving efficiencies, and eventually causing USA to become the wealthiest country of the world: all without government involvement. Then 1913 came, and became the beginning of the economic and fiscal end for the USA. The crisis of 2008 and today didn't start in the last decade, it started with the invention of IRS, income taxes and Fed - printing money and then letting US Treasury to borrow from the Fed.
As to profit motive - that's the only motive that improves the economy, it's the only motive that increases efficiency, because people are trying to optimize for their own profit. Why else would they ever do that? They didn't do that in the country I was born in: USSR.
"Free markets" only provide freedom to the people who control the means of production, not freedom for the people who actually provide the labor of production.
- ideologically driven nonsense. Free market improves the quality of life for the entire population, creates all the wealth, and the more wealth there is, the cheaper it is (not money - products and services) as markets compete for customers (and not for government help).
Free market capitalism was the system that took a poor country and made it wealthy, took the farmers and their kids (who worked starting from tender age of 4-5 before the industrial revolution just as well), took women (who were baby factories, not people), took the still existing slaves (who were by the way, government approved form of property) and turned that around:
children eventually needed more and more specialized education, otherwise t
Good luck having your cancer cured when you earn $600 per month.
- pre-1965 USA health care was cheap, as most people paid for most Dr. visits out of pocket, it was maybe 5 bucks a trip.
At the same time the insurance cost was very low and private companies had more business than Blue Shield/Cross by the choice of the customers, as a family of 4 could have yearly insurance for $25/year, with $500 deductible, covering up to $50K/year in costs, while at the same time, the most expensive yearly cancer treatments, with full hospitalization was $20K/year.
So if a person lived at the time, had that insurance and got cancer, he'd have to pay 500 deductible, which was less than your proposed 600/month, and then he'd be able to have the most expensive year of treatment, and there was enough money left for another 1.5 treatments of the same type.
Low wages are an excellent thing, provided that the government is not inflating money supply (printing), not borrowing and not taxing income, not regulating businesses, which forces businesses to compete for your money and without gov't inflation, the prices go down and your money buy more, which was what USA had in 19 century - deflation in money supply relative to the population, growth of the dollar by x2 and decreasing prices year to year, while USA was becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the world and inventing new things, innovating, increasing efficiencies, all thanks to the government staying AWAY from the economy.
-- As to 'rights' being 'universal' - what is that all about?
RMS believes proprietary software programmers need to find other jobs, which is what I pointed out, but he does not have a problem with programmers building custom software, which was not the question. Why don't you post under your/. nick?
I said socialistic/Marxist government crashes the economy, and then it starts pumping money into it trying to push prices up for things that failed and that must die (so the market says - it must die.)
As to whether the act of pumping the money into failing businesses and asset bubbles is socialist/Marxist or no, I am not making that judgment, but what leads to the problem in the first place is socialistic/Marxist government.
Now, whether US government was or is Marxist - no. However it is socialistic in the sense, that it figured out that it can do whatever it wants if it prints money and taxes income to buy votes, and buying votes from the mob is the most socialistic thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Full scale nonsense, as it was never observed in history of capitalist US market, that those with money were not interesting in growing it through investment into businesses, which grew the US economy over 19 century. Your entire premise that that people do not want to increase their capital through investing their money is completely false on the face of the fact that on the gold standard, USA became the most productive and efficient economy in 19 century, while gold was increasing in price.
You can't fight the facts.
You give me a link, I'll give one back to you, it's called the 'inflation calculator'. Put in the starting date at 1800, the end date at 1913 and use 1 dollar and calculate inflation rate.
Here is what it produces:
What cost $1 in 1800 would cost $0.58 in 1913.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 1913 and 1800,
they would cost you $1 and $1.76 respectively.
then put in start date at 1914 and end date at 2010, still use 1 dollar, and here is what you get:
What cost $1 in 1914 would cost $21.50 in 2010.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2010 and 1914,
they would cost you $1 and $0.05 respectively.
Now, I disagree with the way they calculate current inflation. I calculated that it is 76% just from 2003, but whatever, their calculator is informative anyway, and your comment:
The period of 1800-1900 was evidently not "deflation at the time".
- is again, a fail.
The dollar was gaining in value, firstly because almost every other civilized country on the western hemisphere was growing at that time, secondly because it was backed by an inflating supply of gold (the US was one of the biggest gold producers at the time), thirdly because the US had a very rapid influx of population, lots of migrating workers eager to increase the international value of the fixed supply of dollars.
- you even contradict yourself. Gold cannot simply go up in value due to US being the biggest producer of it. The more of it is produced, the less relative value it has.
As to France - its a huge socialist state, whenever I go there (every now and then), I am amazed at the disparity between the grandeur of the past and the poverty derived from this failing social experiment they started with their revolutions. Well, at least they didn't go full 'USSR' there, they had some sense.
Again, stick to your fiat, I really wish you good luck with that strategy.
Well, you can consider yourself lucky if they teach some history at least.
- whatever they taught me back in the USSR, I didn't believe most of it and I was right. Everybody is out to indoctrinate you in their own propaganda, but hey, nobody can force you to believe one thing or another if you can think and do your own studying.
Do you mean that it could be less expensive, or that it is unnecessary at all? Pharmaceutical industries are known for having abused of their position in the past.
- what I mean in reality of-course is that FDA should not even exist. But at the very least, it must not be in business preventing inventions/drugs/equipment from hitting the store-shelves once they prove safety.
FDA forces the companies to prove various levels of efficacy, I know because I unfortunately dealt with some of that through my early stocks, which I don't own anymore because of that, that was years ago. This pushes prices up severely, but in reality what should be done is that efficacy should be left up to the doctors to decide, who normally share their information, and then we must be able to evaluate the doctors on their performance in the market place as well.
I don't really know if your Constitution explicitly enumerates all of your rights,
- it's totally broken. The original didn't enumerate anything, but then they started adding 'amendments', totally f'd up people's understanding of what rights are.
In reality individuals have all rights, and Constitution only specifies what rights belong to the government and what is the dynamic between the individual rights and the collective powers, but not the rights themselves.
But rights are all negative, as in: the government is not allowed to kill you for example, without due process, you see? It's not that gov't allows you to live, it's that it's not allowed to kill you without due process, to take away your possessions without due process, to incarcerate you without due process, etc.
Original purpose of the Federal gov't, which was ratified (agreed upon) by separate States was to maintain enough military to protect against invasion and to provide a working justice system for criminal and contract law. That was it. That's what the separate States agreed upon. This was eventually broken, usurped and totally subverted, so I am quite surprised that there still no second civil war happening right now, to break out of the union.
For instance, the right to physical integrity means that you can't operate a factory that harms the health of the people living in its surroundings; and the difference between western countries and developing countries, is that in our case this right is actually enforced by passing laws that uphold it, and administering penalties to those who don't observe them. This becomes an handicap for our companies because the "proper way" to behave is usually not the "cheapest way".
- there is a huge misunderstanding on this by pretty much most people in the world.
You see, poor economies in poor countries cannot afford high levels of technology, that would allow them to keep the pollution to a minimum, but very highly technologically developed countries do not need an incentive due to the profit motive, because for them it just makes sense to keep the process as efficient as possible, this really means energy efficiency. The second most important part, which is almost always misunderstood is that the concept of private property must be respected for the free market capitalism to work, but this really relies on the court system, that's the real main purpose of a government - to provide a way to do recourse in case of damage.
Instead what the gov't ended up doing is removing the personal liability from companies' management by setting up a corporation, which literally exists to limit personal liability.
This is the huge problem that the government has created - remove
enormous inflation is mainly theft from past generations
- well yes, if they hold the flawed fiat, and those of us who have a clue do not do such a stupid stupid ridiculous, dumb, thing.
Too little (negative real inflation or deflation), which is mainly theft from future generations: it throttles economic activity and encourages unfair hoarding.
- 19 century USA calls, says you are wrong.
There was deflation at the time, dollar was gaining value, prices were dropping, total wealth - production capacity was increasing, the future generations got a better outcome from that than the past.
So if you want a fair society, one which rewards hard work fairly, regardless of where and when you were born (do you want one? I have to ask because it's not a given.), then we have to find a middle-of-the-road of value for inflation which neither steals from past (through too high inflation), nor from future generations (through too low inflation).
- I don't want anything that somebody defines as 'fair'.
I want an equal opportunity, which requires that the government stays out of our lives, otherwise it protects the old interests in all forms: from SS to the retirees, to subsidies to their preferred monopolies.
Inflation is the disease that the government pushes upon the society, as inflation drives savings out and destroys productivity and thus wealth, leaves society in the hands of government, who then borrows and causes huge debts to be accumulated and then the future generations are stuck what that debt that can never be repaid.
In a simplified model this 'ideal' value for inflation is roughly at the rate of growth of the economy: this does not let past work devalue (whatever is inflated away is won back by you owning currency of a country that is N percent stronger).
- all fiat currencies are flawed, as none of them are backed by anything substantial. Some are weaker and some are stronger relative to each other, but in the inflationary environment of government printing presses, all of them lose to gold.
Now where does gold stand in this picture? If you argue a classic gold standard, with a fixed monetary base then it's sadly close to the extreme deflation end of it: it causes a real negative inflation rate of the growth of the country. It's not the worst hyper-deflation outcome, but it's close to it: it perpetually steals at least growth% amount of resources from future generations, per year.
- ridiculous assertion, in the face of the fact, which you are unwilling to confront, that the USA of 19 century had real deflation, money was growing in value while productivity and wealth was increasing and society was becoming more affluent due to real competition and mostly absent government.
Gold is forced redistribution of wealth to those who already have amassed gold...
- gold is not wealth, it's money. So as somebody works and makes their money, they re-invest (as again, history proves) to make more money, and this allows businesses to take that loan and invest.
What valuable currency, such as gold does, it forces the businesses to be risk averse and really to make sure their business is sound. Government printing free money, gives wrong incentives and moral hazards, and businesses start gambling, resulting in inflation of asset bubbles (because free money is inflating the value of fiat, so store of value has to be shifted somewhere else).
No, the reason that there were bank runs had nothing to do with absence of gold, it had everything to do with banks trying to cheat their way into bigger earnings via fractional reserve, those banks then often collapsed, but while it affected that bank and the depositors in it, the banks were never 'too big to fail', as they become under the flawed fiat and controlling government.
Today, with a largely co
you assume that leisure is separate from work, while it's almost always not.... find types of work for themselves that serve both purposes.
- having a satisfying job is still working to some productive end. You can't redefine leisure as work, don't try.
Work is a lot more than about directly measurable material/intellectual output -
- work is always about directly measurable material/intellectual output.
Even completely abstract math is work, which produces a theory or a proof - product of that work. This means the rest of your comment is meaningless once again, and you don't get the satisfaction.
Now you got me distracted.
Wealth is production capacity - products and services we create. But it is all the things society needs to survive and be prosperous - plentiful production capacity.
Gold is a way to store wealth, define unit of account and as a medium of exchange - it's money.
Fiat is the flawed, regressed expression of promise notes, which once were backed by real money - gold, but eventually the politicians found way around it, and that was the real default, when US government stopped exchanging dollars for gold as they promised, so when they say that US cannot default, they are lying, US has defaulted already, when they got off the gold standard.
The thefts is perpetrated by the government, who steals the purchasing power of all dollars that are already in existence, and that's why the sensible thing to do is not to be in fiat.
"wealth gold" - doesn't make sense.
Wealth is work and gold is money, if you are going to quote me back to me, get your freaking quotes right, OK?
Do you realize that today a gold backed currency is actually theft from future generations ?
- no, currency that is not backed by any work or something tangible is theft from future generations, because such currency ends up creating enormous inflation, which both: pushes production out to places, where the value of money is not destroyed as much, and secondly because destruction of currency leads to giant debt, which those future generations then get stuck with.
What possible justification can you provide to your asinine assertion?
Do you deny that you have no idea on the subject of economics and are still trying to participate in the discussion, where you clearly do not belong?
The quote was nevertheless misleading as presented, it was taken out of fair context
- nope. It was fully in context.
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
- He repeated the question that was asked of him to clarify, didn't get an objection from the reporter and then he answered the question in short form.
There is nothing out of context there.
Note, I do not claim that you quoted out of context intentionally. (the press does this rather consciously)
- and what would be my motivation even to try and take his words out of context? Did I pass a moral judgment in that comment on the merits of his statement? Nope. That comment is very short, you won't find anything there beyond his statement and the fact that I pointed out that he is not th entire GNU movement.
You should go, have outrage at something else, this cow has been milked dry I think.
1. Works is activity by humans or by machines or even by other living creatures that is done to achieve some goal. Normally the goal is something tangible.
2. Whether work is done for pay or for other reasons, there is no major difference, again there is some goal that needs to be achieved, so somebody is trying to achieve it and that's work, (which is opposed to leisure, when people's goal is not to achieve any particular goal, but to enjoy some activity, because they like it.)
3. Work has a very rigid connection to creation of products and services.
Your argument is empty, that's why you get no satisfaction.
Not at all. A right is that which is due someone by moral or legal principle.
- nothing is due to anybody by any principle that we call a 'right'. Right is something that we establish to make sure that the collective cannot destroy the individual in any way, including physical and economic. Nobody is due anything to you or me, well maybe you are royalty, then it's a different story, isn't it?
So you don't accept the right to a trial by jury?
- that's a negative right, so that the government cannot do onto you things that it decides are correct.
Obviously I see that this requires some people to be called to be juries, which can mean that they are forced to serve as the jury, which is a problem in itself, as this does look like force applied to somebody, nearly denying them the right to be free of such detention by the government.
I must reconcile this particular problem by stating that at least the jury must be compensated for their expenses and in some States for lost income. Unfortunately, until we invent robots that can serve as juries, somebody must do it, and elected officials must not be allowed to be the juries themselves, because of conflict of interest.
Of course you can. You have the right to health care, because a society in which everyone cannot obtain basic requirements is fatally flawed and unsustainable. You do not have the right to your own airplane, because a society in which everyone cannot obtain their own airplane is not fatally flawed.
- nonsense. The society that decides it's going to compel its members by force, to pay for treatment, or any other service, for individuals in it, is fatally flawed, not the other way around.
I disagree with you fundamentally on what is correct and what is fatally flawed.
The natural rights are simply the operating requirements of a human person. They include food, clothing, shelter, medical care, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- wrong.
Wrong.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have right to food, clothing, shelter, medical care.
You do have the right to PURSUE those things and happiness, but you are not going to have rights like that, because that literally means somebody else must give you those things, and then that means those people are denied their own rights to their own work, property, pursuit of happiness, they become the slaves in the system, and I can't imagine people wanting to be slaves.
Yes, there is. If I beat you to death, I have clearly violated your rights.
- nope.
If you beat somebody to death, it only means you may stand criminal trial for a criminal offense. But you didn't take away their right - you and that person never had an agreement on what rights are between you two.
The agreement is not between any individuals in the system, it's between the collective and the individual to specify what the right is for the individuals, that the collective cannot take away.
Yes. Please come back when you have.
- well, based on your comment here, you are as confused now, as you were before, so.... too bad.
But I am saying that the idiocy in this case is believing that rights are applicable as a concept to things, that cannot participate in our economy, because rights are established as a relationship between participants in the economy - individuals and the government, which is created by the individuals in order to provide military protection and justice system for criminal and contract law to promote the economy.
Unless those brains actually start working in the economy and supplying it with something useful for the rest of the population, saying they can have rights of real people is retarded.
Rights have everything to do with participation in economy, as rights are established only in the context of defining the relationship between government and individual and the very reason to have government in a society is to have military protection and a working justice system for criminal and contract law, so that economy could function.
Children are clearly participants in the economy, as they are produced by their parents - current economy participants and will hopefully grow up and become full participants themselves.
Wealth is products and services that economy provides.
I >wrote on this enough times here not to care to repeat the same thing over again.
Of-course you can deny all of what I wrote by saying I am 'ignorant' on the topic, but there is nothing else I need to tell you, beyond what I wrote in those other responses. Your opinion is your opinion.
I'm too young to remember 1965 - I'm talking about the present time, especially in developing countries which seem to get to do all the manufacturing these days.
- history should really be learned, it's important to have perspective. Of-course they don't teach real history in government paid for schools, because how would that push the agenda forward, that government needs to be involved in economy at all?
For example talking about manufacturing and history: USA became the manufacturing powerhouse of the world in 19 century, when capital was fleeing other nations to come to USA, because of the lack of government involvement in economy in USA. Gov't was small, it was paid for by excise/alcohol taxes. It involved itself only in the largest enterprises - mainly rail roads, shipping companies and military, so most of the rest of the economy was Free, while government was creating robber barons and tycoons of the world in a small number of industries.
So USA was borrowing money in total, but the borrowed money was borrowed mostly privately from abroad and the money was used to build up production capacity - factories, machines, etc. Eventually this investment started generating enough profit to pay back the old loans, and USA started producing so much, that over 19 century the value of the dollar went up by x2, while high level of competition between businesses, pushed prices down, so there was generally deflation in amount of available credit and prices were falling, but the wealth was growing. Wealth is production capacity - products and services that people have access to in the economy, and the lowering prices were great for the poor. The middle class appeared from urbanization (small businesses/professionals), the women became mostly free, as they didn't have to be baby making machines for the farmers anymore, as the economy shifted from 95% food production, to only 5% food production. The entire concept of child labor, women's rights, slave labor, none of it could really be addressed by a poor society, that had most people just at subsistence level.
Mid-19 century was the time that businesses in USA started providing some types of health insurance (people normally paid out of pocket, as quality and competition were going up for medical care, and prices were very affordable), so selling insurance was hard, but people bought certain types that covered mostly accidents. By 1960s, more people in USA were in private insurance than in Blue Shield/Cross, as private insurance provided better and cheaper coverage, but most people paid for medical procedures out of pocket, because it was cheap.
BTW., many say that medical treatment became more expensive because there was lots of innovation: new medications, machines, etc. - pure nonsense. The reason prices went up and keep doing so is government money in that, which provide ability to get that money for those companies. Electronics are more sophisticated every year, yet prices fall (especially on older models), people still keep buying today, they don't wait until next year to get a TV 15% cheaper. The new medical equipment is no more complex than a new microprocessor or a car, the new medical equipment makes procedures faster, safer, with better outcomes - in real market the prices would be falling quickly.
FDA is a huge reason why prices for medical equipment and medications and procedures are so high. Proving efficacy as well as safety is unnecessarily expensive. The money that comes out of government pockets (and really by destroying the economy via printing/borrowing/taxing) pushes prices up in all things government touches, from insurance to medical treatments, to education, to military, to transportation, to energy, to food production, to housing, to failed business valuations, etc.etc. yet people do not understand this and keep believing that rising prices is in their best interest (Fed is fighting for inflation and they are winning that fight, and even most /. readers believe this is
I believed socialists countries like Sweden or Norway did not in fact buy votes from the mob; they provide good basic services to all people, such as education, healthcare, etc. What you are referring to is a part of populism and of lobbying, and has nothing to do with the fine socialist tradition we have in North Europe.
- politicians are buying the votes by catering to the majority - labor and by screwing the minority - business owners, it's very simple.
As to Sweden and Norway - yes, those are quite socialist, and I would not for a second want to live there, I moved from USSR to Israel, then Canada and US and then to Lucerne and Asia, because for me it is important to have freedom to do business, I want as little government intrusion into my business as possible. Sweden and Norway, by the way, are slowly moving away from their super-socialist ways, because they know they can't survive like that, eventually they'll be crashed, like Greece and Portugal, because in reality, those who build businesses compete globally today, and global competition will not care about your local social obligations, which will make your business uncompetitive because of high taxes, various business regulations and various labor laws that distort the market and cause prices to rise always for running business, making hiring in places, that have too much of that unattractive and impossible to survive in.
And if you think of socialism in a negative way,
- oh, of-course I do. I was born in the USSR and I can't stand even the slightest mentioning of socialist ideology. To me left wing socialism is about as attractive as a system as right wing fascism - state controlling the businesses in order to maintain power through the rule of the mob.
I got to school for free
- not free. You did not pay the price, but it was not free. The sacrifice came in form of higher costs of products/services in the market through less choice, due to government involvement, lower quality, monopolization of the market, destruction of competition, reduction of profit and thus reduction of savings and thus reduction in new businesses, that could benefit from those savings, which eventually leads to stagnation, and as the social obligations eventually become unbearable, this leads to destruction of currency, because one thing the mob cannot stand, is reduction of their supposedly 'free' services, but subsidies, as I mentioned in earlier comments, cannot last forever.
If government creates an environment, in which it can extract enough savings capital from the work of others, so that subsidies can be given to population to buy votes (or to keep your preferred type of society, if you don't like the way I put it), then it means simply this: government is reducing the efficiency of the market and is mis-allocating resources for reasons that are political, which eventually will destroy the economy of that society (and rate of destruction varies from country to country) and then it's very likely, that the money itself will be debased, again, as the mob cannot stand the reduction of its 'free' services, so money will be borrowed and printed and mis-allocated towards those 'free' services.
I am for a sound economy, I am for free market capitalism, because that's the system that has shown to provide such economy without the intervention of the governments and in fact even despite those interventions. I want a sound economy, I want innovation, inventions, products and services - which are wealth, to be produced by the free market due to capital savings, not government enforcement, which is destructive to the economy and eventually to the wealth of the society.
Contrast with the US, what you call "a socialist" country.
- over 25% of the people are on food stamps, 50% of the lower income population pays no income taxes, while the majority of those taxes are paid by the top 25%, the political structure, that
No, if I "tried hard", I would have not provided the link to the source. I provided the exact sentence, didn't take it out of context, didn't cut it in any place, it was the complete response to one concrete question.
The question was about proprietary software, RMS makes a distinction between that and custom made software. The question in this thread was about proprietary software. Your silly allegations are without any merit.
Higher wages shouldn't make things cost more, they should make anyone not directly providing the work have less profit.
- no, what the laws are for is to give the majority of the voters reason to elect those, who push these laws forward.
When you have government involved in business, it's all about money and votes for the politicians, and it's easy to be popular when you advocate taking profit from those greedy rich bastards, running the business, and give it to those hardworking, honorable workers.
However for those very workers, voting this way is about short term profit and not about long terms sustainability of the business. Maybe you noticed that in USA there are almost no trade unions left in private businesses (if there are at all today), but the only place where the unions are thriving is the government? That's because the unions eventually cause the business either to fold, as it cannot compete under those conditions or to move, and then jobs disappear altogether. Government, however, does not need to balance its books. Gov't took the advice of Keynes to the extreme, even he wouldn't be for what passes for his ideology today: run huge deficits during times good and run enormous deficits during times bad. He was for running deficits during times bad but paying debts out during good times. But where are the money in that for politicians? There must be no unions in government, AFAIC, because there is no employer at the table.
Employer gets the shaft, when the government unions negotiate with politicians - it's basic racket: politicians give unions whatever unions want in exchange for votes. The actual employer - tax payer, gets the bill.
As I said in previous comment (which will be moderated down to oblivion, they always do that for no reason, other than they don' tlike the message): higher wages are not the main component of the business cost today. Government regulations, taxes, cost of compliance, cost of inflation upon the savings are the main components.
But you missed my point entirely: absent government destroying the free market, the market pushes prices down and money becomes more valuable, as USA had in 19 century, which started with a dollar that was half the value as by the time the century was over, and prices went down, and businesses thrived even though competition was very high, and innovation and inventions were done privately all the time, improving efficiencies, and eventually causing USA to become the wealthiest country of the world: all without government involvement. Then 1913 came, and became the beginning of the economic and fiscal end for the USA. The crisis of 2008 and today didn't start in the last decade, it started with the invention of IRS, income taxes and Fed - printing money and then letting US Treasury to borrow from the Fed.
As to profit motive - that's the only motive that improves the economy, it's the only motive that increases efficiency, because people are trying to optimize for their own profit. Why else would they ever do that? They didn't do that in the country I was born in: USSR.
"Free markets" only provide freedom to the people who control the means of production, not freedom for the people who actually provide the labor of production.
- ideologically driven nonsense. Free market improves the quality of life for the entire population, creates all the wealth, and the more wealth there is, the cheaper it is (not money - products and services) as markets compete for customers (and not for government help).
Free market capitalism was the system that took a poor country and made it wealthy, took the farmers and their kids (who worked starting from tender age of 4-5 before the industrial revolution just as well), took women (who were baby factories, not people), took the still existing slaves (who were by the way, government approved form of property) and turned that around:
children eventually needed more and more specialized education, otherwise t
Good luck having your cancer cured when you earn $600 per month.
- pre-1965 USA health care was cheap, as most people paid for most Dr. visits out of pocket, it was maybe 5 bucks a trip.
At the same time the insurance cost was very low and private companies had more business than Blue Shield/Cross by the choice of the customers, as a family of 4 could have yearly insurance for $25/year, with $500 deductible, covering up to $50K/year in costs, while at the same time, the most expensive yearly cancer treatments, with full hospitalization was $20K/year.
So if a person lived at the time, had that insurance and got cancer, he'd have to pay 500 deductible, which was less than your proposed 600/month, and then he'd be able to have the most expensive year of treatment, and there was enough money left for another 1.5 treatments of the same type.
Low wages are an excellent thing, provided that the government is not inflating money supply (printing), not borrowing and not taxing income, not regulating businesses, which forces businesses to compete for your money and without gov't inflation, the prices go down and your money buy more, which was what USA had in 19 century - deflation in money supply relative to the population, growth of the dollar by x2 and decreasing prices year to year, while USA was becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the world and inventing new things, innovating, increasing efficiencies, all thanks to the government staying AWAY from the economy.
--
As to 'rights' being 'universal' - what is that all about?
What is it that you don't like? The link? The quote? Or is it the message?
Elaborate.
Another AC?
Maybe you want to log in and make the points again, I am not going to fight windmills here.
and your point is?
RMS believes proprietary software programmers need to find other jobs, which is what I pointed out, but he does not have a problem with programmers building custom software, which was not the question. Why don't you post under your /. nick?
cast him as a villain rather than addressing his arguments?
- go away, AC.
In either case, where in my comment am I casting him as a 'villain'? He is misguided, but he is not a villain.
what takes away your right to avoid software? I don't understand what you are saying.
I said socialistic/Marxist government crashes the economy, and then it starts pumping money into it trying to push prices up for things that failed and that must die (so the market says - it must die.)
As to whether the act of pumping the money into failing businesses and asset bubbles is socialist/Marxist or no, I am not making that judgment, but what leads to the problem in the first place is socialistic/Marxist government.
Now, whether US government was or is Marxist - no. However it is socialistic in the sense, that it figured out that it can do whatever it wants if it prints money and taxes income to buy votes, and buying votes from the mob is the most socialistic thing.
I provided the link, I provided the sentence, nothing selective about it.
The quote concerns proprietary software, not custom software, he does make the distinction.